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PROCEEDINGS 








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OF 


THE STATE IMMIGRATION GONVENTK 

HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 

Virpia Agricultural and Mechanical Society, 


AT THE 


CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ASSEMBLY ROOM. 

4 


RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 

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OCTOBER 16-17, 1894. 



Kictjmonb, Pa.: 

WHITTET & SlIEPPERSON, GENERAL PRINTERS. 

1895. 








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By Trailer, 

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PROCEEDINGS 


OF THE 

STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


The Convention was called to order by Mr. Henry W. Wood, President 
of tlie Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical Society, at 10 :45 a. m., October 
16, 1894. 

The Rev. George H. Ray, D. D., opened the proceedings of the Conven¬ 
tion with prayer. 

Introductory Remarks. 

Me. Wood : I think before proceeding with our programme I should make a brief 
statement with reference to the call of the Convention. A few months back Hon. J. 
P. Fitzgerald addressed an open letter in the Richmond Dispatch upon the subject of 
Immigration to Judge Geo. L. Christian, President of The Richmond Chamber of 
Commerce, which, being referred to the Chamber’s Committee on Agriculture and 
Immigration, resulted in the suggestion that the Virginia State Agricultural and Me¬ 
chanical Society should call a convention to consider the question of Immigration dur¬ 
ing the present Exposition. The press throughout the State also discussed the ques¬ 
tion, and strongly urged that such a convention be held. The officers of the Associa¬ 
tion agreed most heartily to the proposition, considering it a subject of great impor¬ 
tance, and passed resolutions appointing a committee from the Society to take charge 
of the matter. This committee consisted of Prof. W. B. Allwood, Edward S. Rose, 
H. L. Lorraine, Walter E. Grant, J. B. Watkins and myself. My associates upon the 
committee performed with zeal all the detail work connected with calling the Convention, 
and securing a proper representation. On the part of the State, they invited his Ex¬ 
cellency, Governor O’Ferrall, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and the State Board of 
Agriculture, to attend and participate in the proceedings of the Convention. On the 
part of the counties throughout the State, the Boards of Supervisors were requested 
to appoint three delegates from each county. All agricultural societies and prominent 
agriculturists, transportation companies, commercial and trade organizations of Vir¬ 
ginia, were also requested to be present or send representatives, and the cordial sup¬ 
port of the press was invoked to secure the success of the Convention. These mea¬ 
sures having been taken, a programme of proceedings was mapped out, which I shall 
at the proper time beg to submit for your approval. We have asked his Excellency, 
Charles T. O’Ferrall, Governor of Virginia, to make the address of welcome, and I 
now take pleasure in introducing him to the meeting. 



4 


PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 


Address of Governor Charles T. O’Ferrall. 

Gentlemen of the Convention : It affords me infinite pleasure to welcome you to 
this capital city of your State. You have come with no personal ends to subserve, 
no selfish purposes to execute. You have gathered from the different sections of Vir¬ 
ginia to inaugurate a movement for the increase of her population and the promotion 
of her general welfare. We have, indeed, a heritage unexcelled, a patrimony unsur¬ 
passed, yet its beauty and grandeur, its natural strength and power, are comparatively 
unknown. 

Hitherto we have been too modest and reserved in holding up to public gaze the 
advantages which our fair State possesses, and by our supineness and lethargy we 
have allowed other States, by their energy and activity, to outstrip us in increasing 
their population and advancing their material interests. 

But I am glad to know that times have changed; spirit is aroused, fresh blood 
has been infused into our veins, and “ forward” is now the command. 

We will no longer rest on our oars, but they shall keep stroke, and our voices 
keep time, to the music of progress. With the vigor of new life we will tear away 
the veil which seems to have obscured us, wipe out the line of apparent exclusiveness, 
and cast aside the cloak of seeming selfishness. 

We will enter the field armed and panoplied to contest for the high prize of supe¬ 
riority in natural resources and in all the elements which constitute the real stamina 
of a people. 

We will point to our genial sunshine and salubrious climate; our medicinal springs 
whose waters almost rival those of the fabled fountain of youth; our balmy breezes 
and health-giving and blood-enriching atmosphere; our robust manhood and splendid 
physical development. 

We will point to our fertile soil, rich grain, grass, tobacco, trucking and dairy- 
farms ; our mines of iron-ore sufficient to supply the metal to run an iron belt around 
the world, with coal in close proximity to smelt every ton of it; our inexhaustible 
quarries of building stones; our forests dense with all the woods which trade at home 
or abroad can demand; our water-powers ample to drive the machinery of a kingdom, 
and our rivers and bays, upon whose broad bosoms the navies of all the nations could 
float, and in whose land-locked harbors they could find safety in time of storm. 

We will present the advancement we have made since the blast of war blew in 
our ears, virtually within ourselves, and in spite of the adverse winds we encountered 
and the strong current of sectional prejudice which so long retarded us. 

We will show that from a land in desolation, beaten hard by the hoof of contend¬ 
ing armies, and swept by the flames of civil strife; a land without mills, furnaces, fac¬ 
tories, forges, fences, farming utensils, working-stock, or seed-corn, with lone chim¬ 
neys standing everywhere like sentinels over the graves of departed hopes, the wrecks 
of fortunes, and the ruins of happy homes; a land so devastated, that, to use the lan¬ 
guage of a famous man, “a crow flying over its most fertile section would have to 
carry his own rations”; a land of mourning, wails, and lamentations; a land without 
money or credit, yet debt-ridden by private and public obligation—this stricken land 
has risen like the mythical Phoenix, and now stands forth not only equaling, but far 
surpassing, her former self, when she was clothed in all the beauty and power of her 
six generations of vigorous growth. 

We will direct attention to our many lines of railroads traversing the State, the 
expansion of our old cities and towns, and the new ones that have sprung up every¬ 
where ; our factories singing their song of industry, and our furnaces and forges light¬ 
ing the heavens with their lurid glare. 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


We will direct attention to our excellent free-school system, under which the 
school-door is thrown open to every child, without regard to rank or position; to our 
churches of every denomination, from whose pulpits the doctrines of salvation are 
preached and the admonition sounded: “A city may as well be built in the air as a 
Commonwealth or kingdom preserved without the support of religion.” 

We will invite the virtuous and industrious from every State and nationality to come 
within our gates, and enjoy with us the boundless bounties which a beneficent God 
has showered upon us. 

To all v r ho may respond to our invitation we will guarantee the protection of our 
laws, the preservation of their rights, freedom of thought, liberty of speech, and equal 
and exact justice. We will not inquire as to their political opinions or religious faith, 
but accord to them the privilege of casting their ballots as they may please, and wor¬ 
shipping the Mighty Ruler without hindrance or proscription under their own vine and 
fig-tree. 

Rut, gentlemen, I know I voice your sentiments when I declare that, while a cor¬ 
dial greeting wfill be extended to all whose citizenship will add to our wealth in 
money, brain, or muscle, we do not intend that Virginia shall become a Botany 
Bay nor the abode of the vile and vicious. The Communist, Socialist, and Anarchist 
must seek some other place, for they cannot settle under our skies, nor inhabit any 
portion of our fair heritage. Neither have we a welcome for the laggard or idler, for 
he is a poor and dangerous citizen. It has been truly said that “idleness is the 
cushion upon which the devil chiefly reposes.” The lurker and the lounger have the 
social dry-rot, and are the bane of any community. 

In presenting our State in all the radiancy of her transcendent benefits, we must 
not lose sight of the fact that from her earliest day she has upheld “the law as the 
perfection of reason,” and taught the fundamental principle that law must prevail or 
tyranny must rule. Where the one ends the other begins. We can with glowing 
pride refer to the reign of peace within our borders when riot was holding high carni¬ 
val in other States so recently, and business was suspended, the hum of industry 
stilled, and the w r heels of commerce clogged by wuld and reckless bands of men. 
Financial depression had cast its shadows and gloom over the whole land and 
brought disorder in many sections, but quiet prevailed throughout our limits, and 
our artisans, mechanics, miners, operators, and laborers vied with other classes in 
maintaining order and setting the seal of their condemnation upon the doctrine of 
redressing wrongs, whether real or imaginary, by a resort to violence. 

Gentlemen, with what confidence can you enter upon your work? You will go 
forward armed with facts which will bear the scrutiny of the most searching eye 
under the brightest light. You need no weapon, and I am sure you will use no 
weapon to win the victory but the weapon of truth. 

We may have wasted opportunities in the past, but I doubt whether there has 
ever been a more opportune time than the present to press the claims of Virginia to 
the front. 

We read daily that all through the West and Northwest the spirit of emigration 
is spreading like fire in dry stubble. A soil more friendly, a spring earlier, a sum¬ 
mer moister, a fall later, a winter milder, and winds less violent, are what the farmers 
of those States are seeking. Snows and ice, cyclones and droughts, fires and insects, 
have changed the cry, “ Come West, young man,” to the refrain, “ Go South, young 
man.” 

But the trend of emigration southward is not confined to the West and North¬ 
west sections, but we hear mutterings north of Mason & Dixon’s line, and find the 


6 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


feeling growing among the tillers of the soil there that they must avoid the severity 
of northern winters, and seek a warmer and more genial climate. 

Most naturally we sympathize with those who must break up their homes, ‘ ‘ for 
home is home, though it be ever so homely,” yet we are glad we can offer them an 
abiding place, where, by industry and-frugality, they can live in peace, plenty and 
prosperity, comfort and contentment; where there has been no cry for bread, no suf¬ 
fering from the winter’s cold, no disregard of law, no army of idlers, and no spirit of 
Coxeyism. 

Not only is self-interest prompting emigration from the agricultural classes of 
the West and North to the South, but the eyes of the capitalists of both sections are 
turned southward, and soon they will be wending their way hither to invest their 
money. Where within the range of their vision can they find grander inducements 
than are offered in this State of law and order, in her climate and soil, undeveloped 
mines and woodlands, as well as in her established industries? 

But I must not be understood as desiring to confine our invitation to the citizens 
of the States composing this Union. No, no. As I have already indicated, we want 
Virginia’s voice to be heard in distant lands, offering a hearty welcome to the lover 
of our republican institutions, who will come to us to live a virtuous and upright life, 
no matter to what monarch or sovereign he may owe allegiance. Our invitation is 
general, embracing not only those born under the rays of an American sun, or, if 
born abroad, have sundered already the ties that bound them to all foreign poten¬ 
tates ; but those living under royal power, if they come imbued with fidelity to the 
principles upon which this government was founded, and which must be preserved, 
or this republic must fall. 

Virginia is proud of her adopted foreign-born sons; they constitute in great meas¬ 
ure her strength: they have ever been true to her; they were her defenders in her 
days of trial, and are as steadfast now in their devotion to her welfare and interests. 
But, gentlemen, I must not detain you. There is important business before you; 
your time is valuable. 

What special means will you adopt to accomplish the purpose you have so dear 
at heart ? What course will you pursue to bring about the results you so greatly desire ? 
It is not my province even to make a suggestion. It is enough for me to know that 
your plan, whatever it maybe, will be wise and judicious; that you will be active 
and energetic, vigilant and watchful, and in your lexicon there will be no such word 
as “fail.” 

Be assured that I am in full sympathy with you, and will be ready at all times to 
lend you a helping hand as far as may be in my power. 

I am glad to see the railroads represented on this floor, for they are the most 
powerful factors in the development and building up of a country. Without their 
hearty cooperation, success is hard to attain; but with their zealous aid, obstacles 
otherwise insurmountable are easily overcome. 

It gives me great pleasure to find the press sustaining you, for without its friendly 
columns your movement would proceed slowly, and, however earnest might be your 
efforts, you would progress with leaden shoes and cramped limbs. 

Gentlemen, in your work you have every incentive that any land could afford. I 
have spoken of her material wealth, her boundless resources, and the character of her 
population; but in addition to her endowments of nature and the lofty characteristics 
of her people, the history of this old Commonwealth must kindle within you a flame 
that will brighten as it burns. 

Every State whose star is in the beautiful constellation has furnished tongues and 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


7 


pens to laud Virginia’s virtues and to extol her excellency, to proclaim her deeds and 
to panegyrize her achievements. Across the the ocean deep, where crowned heads 
rule and’ royal purple drapes regal thrones, her name is a synonym of all that is su¬ 
perb in principle and sublime in character. In the gilded halls of the rich and in the 
humble cottage of the poor, in the palace of the king and in the hut of the peasant, 
wherever enlightenment and civilization have shed their rays, she is enthroned in the 
minds of men as the early advocate and grand representative of the ideas of repub¬ 
lican liberty and a people’s government, as reflected in our national Constitution. 
There is nothing like the magic of her name—a name written upon the tablets of 
eternity—a deathless name. If her mountains were leveled, her rivers dried up, her 
forests razed; if by some convulsion of nature she were wiped from the face of the 
globe, her fame would still live in immortality and perennial freshness. 

Then, with the inspirations which spring from reflections so exalting, let every 
son proclaim the strength and power, and point to the traditions, glories, and mem¬ 
ories of this birth-land, home-land, and grave-land of Washington and Jefferson, of 
Lee and Jackson, and thank God that he is a Virginian. 

Again, welcome, gentlemen, thrice welcome, to this city of beauty, enterprise, 
progress, of learning and culture, of graves of the great and monuments of the illus¬ 
trious—the metropolis and capital of your State. 

Organization. 

Mr. Wood next announced that it was in order to effect the permanent 
organization of the Convention, and said that he would be glad to entertain 
any motion that might be offered looking to that end. 

On motion of Mr. R. M. Mallory, that a Committee on Permanent Organi¬ 
zation be appointed, R. M. Mallory, Professor W. B. Allwood, S. W. Corbin, 
Colonel Daniel Stone, and Joseph Wallerstein were appointed upon that 
committee; and, upon motion of Colonel E. M. Henry, that a Committee on 
Credentials be appointed, Colonel E. M. Henry, J. P. Fitzgerald, R. V. 
Gaines, J. F. Jackson, and R. B. Chaffin were appointed the Committee on 
Credentials. 

The Committee on Organization then reported the following nominations: 

President —Absalom Koiner. 

Vice-Presidents —R. P. Carson, J. P. Fitzgerald, and Isaac Diggs.' 

Secretary —R. A. Dunlop. 

Assistant Secretaries —The members of the press. 

On motion of Mr. R. B. Chaffin, the name of Col. E. M. Henry, of Norfolk, 
and on motion of Professor All wood, the name of T. L. Poindexter, of Norfolk 
County, were added to the list of Vice-Presidents of the Convention, and the 
report as thus amended was adopted. 

The Committee on Credentials then made the following report through 
its chairman, Colonel Henry: 

The Committee on Credentials recommends that the Secretary of the 
Convention call the roll of counties and cities of the State, and note 


8 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


the names of persons representing them, and also of organizations which 
were invited in the call issued for this Convention to send representatives 
thereto, and that all citizens of Virginia present who are interested in the 
object of this Convention, not delegated by any organization, be invited to 
enroll their names as members of this Convention. 

On motion, the report of the committee being received, the Secretary 
proceeded to call the roll, when it was found that the following representa¬ 
tives were present at the opening of the Convention: 


List of Delegates. 


Amelia,.R. E. Bridgforth. 

Brunswick,.J. W. Bailey. 

Buckingham..E. W. Hubbard. 

Charles City,.John O. Otey. 

Cumberland,.J. E. Clarke. 

Dinwdddie,.Dr. John P. Goodwin. 

Elizabeth City,.Col. J. C. Phillips and Robert S. Hudgins. 

Essex,.Hon. Robert Beverley. 

Floyd,.J. H. Woodward. 

Fluvanna,.Dr. D. R. Boston. 

Halifax,.James H. Guthrie. 

Hanover,.Julian M. Ruffin and William P. Winston. 

Henry,.J. P. Brown. 

James City,.D. W. Marston. 

King William,.B. C. Garrett, A. T. Mooklar, and T. C. 

Cummings. 

Jjunenburg,.I. T. Bagley and George E. Smith. 

Mathews,.F. R. Haynes and W. N. Traylor. 

Madison,.John C. Utz. 

Mecklenburg.J. V. Nichols. 

Northampton,.Henry L. Upshur and Dr. Charles Smith. 

Nottoway,.Dr. O. M. Knight. 

Powhatan,...J. H. Hobson and W. W. Oxford. 

Prince Edward,.J. P. Fitzgerald and T. J. Garden. 

Prince George,.Robert S. Lockett. 

Rockbridge,.Col. J. D. H. Ross. 

Smyth,.J. S. Apperson. 

Surry,.Col. Daniel Stone. 

Warwick,.J. H. Young, J. H. Crafford, and A. C. 


Pulliam. 

Washington,.Col. R. P. Carson. 

York,.J. W. Clements. 

State Board of Agriculture,.S. W. Corbin (president), Absolom Koiner, 

R. V. Gaines, R. M. Mallory, A. S. Bu¬ 
ford, and Thomas Whitehead. 

Young Men’s Business League of Roanoke, H. W. Anderson. 

Chamber of Commerce, Richmond, . . . . R. B. Chaffin, Joseph Wallerstein, and 

James H. Barton. 

































STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


9 


Real Estate Exchange, Norfolk,.W. B. Baldwin and Walter Sharp. 

Chamber of Commerce, Norfolk.A. Jeffers and K. C. Murray. 

German-American Association of Virginia, Rev. Dr. Paul L. Menzel, A. V. Rosenegk, 

Charles T. Loehr, Joseph Wallerstein, 
and W. H. Zimmerman. 

Board of Trade, Buena Vista.R. W. Winburne. 

Transportation Lines,.C. A. Taylor, traffic manager Richmond, 

Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad; 
C. L. Bunting, general freight and pas¬ 
senger agent Southern, Atlantic and Ohio 
Railway.' 

Business-Men’s Association of Norfolk,. . James W. McCarrick (chairman), D. Mc¬ 
Cormick, Joseph T. Duke, O. E. Ed¬ 
wards, A. H. Lindsay, T. H. Synon, 
Walter Sharp, P. L. Poindexter, N. P. 
Gatling, Fred. S. Taylor, and Walter H. 
H. Trice; ex-officio, Col. E. M. Henry 
and C. Pickett. 

Portsmouth Board of Trade,.Paul C. Trugien. 

A number of additional delegates came in after the call of the counties 
and cities. 

Mr. "Wood appointed Prof. W. B. Allwood and Mr. R. B. Chaffin a com¬ 
mittee to conduct the President-elect, Mr. Absalom Koiner, to the chair. 

On assuming the chair, Mr. Koiner addressed the Convention as follows: 

Address of President Koiner. 

It has always been regarded as a distinguished honor to preside over a conven¬ 
tion of Virginia gentlemen. This is an unexpected honor to me, and I feel poorly 
qualified to discharge the high trust. I shall depend very much upon the members of 
the Convention to promote the business that we have assembled to perform. I take 
it that you are all business men, and that we have come together to do this work 
without any unnecessary expenditure of time, and that it will be despatched as 
promptly as may be consistent with proper deliberation. 

I shall not attempt to say anything now with regard to the subjects that will 
come before you, as is sometimes done by chairmen when elected. We have already 
had an address of welcome by the Governor, which has covered the ground pretty 
generally that might have been covered by the President-elect. I suppose you will be 
governed by the ordinary parliamentary rules, and that our session will be so short 
that it will hardly be necessary for us to adopt any code of laws for our government. 
While I am upon my feet I would suggest to the members of this Convention that as 
this hall is # very large, and it is difficult for one to hear on this side what is said on the 
other, that you all take seats as near the front as you can conveniently, thereby en¬ 
abling all to hear what is being said, and also enabling the chair to hear any motion 
that is offered. The Vice-Presidents-elect are respectfully invited to take seats near 
by, especially the First Vice-President, as I shall have occasion to ask his assistance 
in the conduct of affairs. 





10 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


Mr. Wood: Mr. President, on behalf of the Committee on Arrangements, 
I desire to state that it was deemed proper to arrange for short addresses, or 
for parties to lead the discussion on the various subjects which will come up 
before the Convention, and, accordingly, we have prepared a programme 
which, we trust, will meet with your approval. The first subject on the pro¬ 
gramme is an address by Professor Allwood on “The Capabilities and Re¬ 
sources of the Soil.” It may, perhaps, be well if it meets the approval of 
the Convention, to adopt this programme as a whole, but that is, of course, 
a matter which rests with the Convention. 

On motion, the programme as prepared by the Committee on Arrange¬ 
ments was adopted. 

The following addresses were then delivered in the order suggested by 
the Committee of Arrangements: 

Agricultural Resources and Capabilities of the Soil. 

By Prof. Wm. B. All wood, 

Of Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : The discussion of this 
question is of such prime importance, and withal implies such an intimate knowledge 
of the soils comprising the several sections of our Commonwealth, that it should 
have fallen to an abler head; one whose years and experience, as well as intimate 
personal acquaintance with the character and productions of our diversified soils and 
climatic regions, would enable him to speak with that authority which can only be 
founded upon an accurate knowledge of the facts. Your humble servant regrets the 
lack of this necessary knowledge, but, yielding to the pressure of circumstances, has 
consented to speak upon this topic. Though a citizen of this State for the brief 
period of six years, it has, however, been my pleasure to visit every section of it, and 
to pass through, in doing so, almost every one of the one hundred counties compris¬ 
ing the State: during all of which travel my faculties of observation have been 
eagerly alert to discover the agricultural conditions and capabilities of the soil. 
And added to the normal zeal of one serving the public in a capacity like mine, has 
been that of the enthusiasm of a young man for the State of his adoption. With 
these few introductory remarks, Mr. President and Gentlemen, I shall proceed in my 
imperfect manner to treat the subject assigned me. 

In the brief space of thirty minutes allotted to this address, I could not hope to 
comprehensibly speak of the resources and possibilities of soil development of one of 
the least important of the minor divisions of the State, so rich and varied are our 
agricultural resources as a whole; but I take it that upon an occasion like the 
present, a calm, conservative statement of general facts is more in keeping with the 
end sought than would be elaborate and exhaustive statistics or attempt at lauda¬ 
tion and undue praise of what we know to be a noble heritage. 

However unable I may be to duly present all the facts as to our agricultural re¬ 
sources, it is my desire to here commend the wisdom of giving this subject a place in 
the programme of this Convention. Whatever may be the glorious past of a State, 
its records of achievements upon the field of battle or in the forum, its noble lineage, 
its culture or refinement, past or present, its future, I repeat it gentlemen, the future of 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 11 

this State must rest upon its agricultural resources. Beside their importance all else 
pales into insignificance. 

“ Tillage and pasturage are the two breasts of the State.” 

“ Agriculture is the nursing mother of the arts.” 

The first demands of every population are food and clothing. These come prima¬ 
rily from the soil. This proposition needs no argument. Then, unless we can con¬ 
vince would-be settlers that we have a soil capable of supporting and furnishing a 
competency to a dense agricultural population, and that the economic conditions are 
favorable, your blandishments are in vain! Agricultural resources practically without 
limit must be the basis upon which you seek to gain the ear of the home-seeker. In 
considering the agricultural resources of a State, of such varied character as ours, we 
must of necessity divide it into different boundaries or sections, having somewhat 
identical physical and climatic features. 

It is not possible for me to enter into extended discussion of the geology of the 
State, nor of its climatic features, but I wish to indicate as definitely as is practicable 
the several sections having in the main common characteristics of formation, topog¬ 
raphy and climate. Hence, the purpose in view by the boundaries noted herein is to 
make agricultural distinctions concerning the several sections, and to thus aid any 
who may not be acquainted with the State in forming a better conception of the re¬ 
sources and possibilities of its soil. 

For purposes of classification, geologists have divided Virginia into six regions, 
each of which comprises a strip- of land extending somewhat diagonally across the 
State from northeast to southwest, varying much in width and boundary lines, yet in 
general they may be considered and spoken of as great parallel strips of land, each 
succeeding the other in steps as it were from the sea inland. Virginia belongs to the 
middle group of Atlantic Coast States, and within her borders the great Atlantic 
coast plain broadens out to its maximum breadth, attaining in some portions a width 
of one hundred and fifty miles. This comprises the section of our State commonly 
called Tidewater, and in extent is practically one-fourth of the area of the State. 
Geologically, it is of recent origin, and composed of the detritus of older regions, 
washed down and deposited presumably on the bed of a shallow ocean. The general 
character of this soil is sandy, but varies from coarse gravelly ridges to black sandy 
loam, and in some portions deposits of fine clay loam cover considerable areas. These 
latter are found more especially near the ocean. The soil of tidewater, where com¬ 
posed largely of coarse gravel and sand, cannot be said to be retentive, or naturally a 
rich soil. But the dark, or grey sandy loams of the first and second bottoms are rich, 
and the clay formations when put in proper tilth are almost inexhaustible. 

The soil of this entire section, barring some areas where clay predominates, is 
easily tilled, warm, and highly responsive to the efforts of man. Prior to the advent 
of the white man, it was the red man’s paradise, and the well known words of Captain 
Smith that, “Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habi¬ 
tation,” are now, after the lapse of more than two centuries, equally true as it was 
when man first trod its virgin soil in the “forest primeval.” It is not within my pro¬ 
vince to speak of its noble rivers, bays, and estuaries at length, yet they are such an 
important factor in the possibilities of the future developments of its soil that I must 
ask you to note them. Consider the fact that an area of but little more than 11,000 
square miles has 3,000 miles of shore line, approachable by small water craft, and 
“about 1,500 miles of steamboat navigation,” with lesser streams almost without 
limit. What does this mean for the products of the soil ? Such facilities for develop¬ 
ing agricultural production on a cheap, yet stupendous scale, are possessed by no equal 
area of this country. 


12 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


But what are the resources of this section ? What have they been in the past ? 
What shall they be in the future? The soil which we have described as not especially 
a retentive or over-fertile soil, except in the most favored sections, withstood a sys¬ 
tem of exhaustive culture for two centuries, which enriched the proprietors and cov¬ 
ered this fair section with country mansions such as were then found nowhere else 
upon this continent. Peace and plenty abounded, and the lords of the manors dis¬ 
pensed a hospitality the like of which is seldom seen. 

What crops were grown in this former time? Principally corn, wheat, and to¬ 
bacco. Other crops found place in the system of agriculture practiced, but only to a 
slight extent. These three were the money crops, and all of them very exhausting to 
the soil, especially so when grown consecutively for long periods of years. It cannot 
be denied that the system of agriculture which prevailed in the past was very short¬ 
sighted, and wasteful of nature’s resources; but what are we to say of a soil which 
bore up so long under the strain of such cropping? It must be that nature has lavished 
here climatic conditions which render the soil wonderfully available to the arts of the 
cultivator; and this is true. Here are found those conditions of heat and moisture 
which produce growth as nowhere else in the State. This soil, though ruthlessly im¬ 
poverished by man, when abandoned for cultivation at once clothes itself with some 
form of vegetation, and begins the process of restoration. Under the old system of 
culture it yielded wheat at the rate of ten to thirty bushels per acre; corn, forty-five 
to fifty bushels per acre; tobacco, two hundred to five hundred pounds per acre ; and 
its best lands were under incessant tillage. The late war nearly blotted out every 
vestige of this former productiveness; and its owners, left with altered conditions of 
labor, in a measure abandoned the soil to the mercy of the tenant croppers, who pro¬ 
ceeded to complete by swifter process the destructive work of former years. This 
lecherous system has done its worst, and yet the soil is still there; and now, with the 
slow revival of agriculture under more benign conditions, it smiles in glad response 
to its benefactors, and yields an abundant harvest to the labor guided by intelligence. 
Formerly it yielded its wheat, corn, and tobacco in sufficient crops to satisfy its pro¬ 
prietors. To-day the crops formerly grown are not the staples of this region, though 
still largely cultivated. The kindly soil of this section has, in many instances, been 
turned to more lucrative production. Commercial facilities have made it possible for 
our tide-water farmers to cater to the tastes of the great urban populations of Wash¬ 
ington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chi¬ 
cago, and many lesser cities; and they have found it profitable to do so. Hence 
the choicest vegetables and early fruits are laid down at these great markets while 
those cities more northerly situated are yet suffering from winter’s icy winds. 

But you will ask, Is this business profitable? I can only answer that it has 
grown during the last twenty-five years from a small beginning to a yearly magnitude 
of five millions of dollars from the port of Norfolk alone; and every considerable port 
or railroad depot is a shipping-point to further swell the grand total. Unfortunately, 
we have no adequate means of arriving at a total of this business; but the above 
amount is three times greater than the value of all the output from our iron and coal 
mines per annum, and yet it is only a part of the produce from this section. 

Competition is keen, and men fail in this as well as in other business enterprises, 
but I can say, from personal observation, that where men have concentrated their 
energies, within proper limits, upon the work in hand, with knowledge for the con¬ 
duct of the same, they have succeeded. 

All of the garden-truck crops and small fruits are successfully grown in the Tide¬ 
water section; but space will only permit me to notice a few of them, to show what 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


13 


is possible. Perhaps early potatoes constitute one of the largest crops in this region. 

It has been my pleasure to visit some of the finest trucking regions of New York, 
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, yet never have I seen a sight so pleasing to the cultivator as 
the hundreds—yes, thousands—of acres of potatoes growing about Norfolk, and else¬ 
where in this section. The soil is perfect in its mechanical condition for all the opera¬ 
tions necessary to the culture of this crop, and, where underdrained and well tilled, 
yields fifty to eighty barrels per acre of the finest tubers. Of kale, spinach, and cab¬ 
bage, I have seen fields that looked like a sea of green in extent, and apparently every 
plant growing so perfectly and evenly that it almost looked like artificial work. The 
first-mentioned yields two hundred to three hundred barrels per acre, and the last two, 
one hundred and fifty to two hundred barrels per acre each. Strawberries are coming 
to be more and more largely grown every year, under the influence of this kindly soil 
and genial climate, and the yield reaches from two thousand to three thousand quarts 
per acre, without one-half the care and labor bestowed upon them in the North; and 
crops are on record of six thousand quarts per acre. Sweet potatoes must be men¬ 
tioned as a crop of the first rank. Barring that of New Jersey, I presume that our 
crop from the Eastern Shore and the Norfolk region stands the highest of any on the 
market as to quality; and the yield is only limited by the skill of the cultivator with¬ 
in the limits of three hundred to five hundred bushels per acre. 

While speaking of the truck crops, I cannot forbear to portray a faint picture of 
some of the novel and beautiful sights that have met my eyes in this region, the most 
striking of which, from an agricultural point of view, is where one of these extensive 
truck farms is situated upon one of the rivers or arms of the sea, and loads its pro¬ 
duce from its own wharf upon small craft, and these, hoisting their white sails to the 
winds, carry them quickly and safely to the larger port, where the huge iron steam¬ 
ers of the coastwise traffic swallow hundreds of these small cargoes, and bear them 
away for the consumption of waiting thousands in less favored localities. To me it 
is an ideal existence, where nature has done its utmost to enable man to develop 
rural life to its greatest limits. 

I would not for a moment have any one believe that the products of tide-water 
are limited to trucking. On the contrary, right in the midst of trucking interests we 
find excellent crops of corn, wheat and hay; and the peanut industry, in which Vir¬ 
ginia leads the world, is confined to this section. I can cite notable instances of corn 
and hay crops on the bottom lands of this section in which one hundred bushels per 
acre of corn have been grown, and two to three tons of hay. An average yield of 
fifty bushels per acre of corn is of common occurrence. But I must check the tend¬ 
ency to particularize. 

What shall I say of the future of this region ? Have its capabilities been fully 
developed? Most certainly they have not. It is foreign to my purpose to cite phe¬ 
nomenal results which have been achieved here and there, but I state what I fully 
know to be the fact when I say that this region is not developed to fifty per cent, of 
its productive capacity. I have said almost nothing of the climate, as this subject is 
to be treated by another; but in speaking of future possibilities, I must allude to the 
fact that, under the genial influences of the Gulf Stream and our middle latitude, we 
can grow in this region some crops all the year round. During the long periods that 
the soil remains frozen in more northerly latitudes, we are either preparing it for an 
early crop, or recuperating it under a restorative crop, like annual or crimson clover. 
Thus, by the extremely favorable climatic conditions, we can take off from two to 
three crops per annum, varying with their seasons, and then grow a manuring or re-' 
storative crop of clover to furnish humus and the nitrogenous element of plant-food 


14 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


in the soil. Also, the immense marl-beds and supplies of fish for the manufacture of 
fertilizers are prime factors in the future development of this region. It has been 
abundantly demonstrated by practical cultivators that the liberal use of marl will re¬ 
store and render productive the most worn soil; and the marl exists here in natural 
beds without limit. 

I have not yet spoken of the orchard products of Tidewater. There are a few 
marked instances of successful orcharding in this section, but it is not the orchard 
section of the State by any means. However, it is preeminently fitted for the culture 
of early apples, pears, and peaches, and some notable successes have been achieved 
in this line; but this industry has not been developed, and is as yet receiving but 
little attention. If peach-growing is successful in the coast region of Delaware and 
Maryland, why should it not be in Virginia? Be assured, gentlemen, it is solely a 
question of skill and industry. # 

I have already said too much about one section of the State, hence must turn my 
attention to other portions of our domain. Speaking in common parlance, Middle 
Virginia lies above Tidewater, and comprises all that area from the head of tide to the 
foot hills of Piedmont. This is the largest of any of the physical regions of the State, 
and comprises nearly one-third of its entire land area. Geologically it is the oldest, 
or was first elevated above the ocean. Its rock formations are granitic, and have by 
decomposition yielded a soil which is chiefly a fine gray sandy gravel, blending into 
loam where vegetable matter has accumulated. Here and there occur areas of 
the red clays of Piedmont, but these are not a marked feature of the region. There 
is also a fine chocolate soil occurring in local areas, which is a most excellent land for 
all agricultural purposes. 

Middle Virginia is not marked by the many navigable rivers of Tidewater, but is 
cut by these same rivers in their second course, and is abundantly watered by lesser 
streams. Its surface contour is more broken and rolling, rising into a few hills attain¬ 
ing the elevation of mountains, but on the whole is a great middle plain. The sandy, 
loamy character of its soil renders it one of the finest soils to cultivate man has ever 
seen. It is my presumption that, because of this very characteristic, our predecessor s 
wrung from this soil its golden wealth in tobacco and wheat and corn, until it is much 
of it in a condition called impoverished. Along the streams the soil is of an exceed¬ 
ing natural fertility, and much of the rolling land is capable of being brought into a 
high state of cultivation. Many of the gravelly ridges are quite barren and not suited 
to heavy cropping, but can be made useful for orcharding and other fruit-growing 
purposes. 

In this region there are localities noted for many years for the peculiar excellence 
of their products, as the sweet sun-cured Orinoco tobacco of Louisa and other counties. 
The bright tobacco produced now quite generally over this section ranks with the best 
of the State, and the dark shipping types are now, and have been for many years, the 
standard of excellence in these grades of tobacco. While the culture of tobacco has 
gone steadily forward and yielded good returns where competent brains and energy 
have been put into its culture, upon the whole this large section of Middle Virginia 
has received less of impetus and new life since the war than any other section, hence 
we have not before us practical examples of what its soil can and will do in such num¬ 
ber as in the other sections. But fortunately I am able to speak from personal obser¬ 
vation and say, that where energetic men with faith in their calling have devoted 
themselves to agriculture, their efforts have not been in vain. 

Tobacco has been, and still is, the great staple of this section. This fact of itself 
is evidence of the quality of its soil. That much of the land has unwisely been run 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


15 


with this crop until depleted is evident, but the fact remains of its character and ability 
to withstand heavy cropping. 

The great evil of this whole area is that it has been farmed consecutively for two 
centuries without any idea of maintaining the vegetable matter—humus—in the soil, 
hence its barren, sandy appearance in many parts totally belies its real quality. I 
have heard the following forcible, though not entirely elegant, expression, which 
serves to illustrate the possibilitites of proper cropping upon these apparently barren 
areas: It was authentically stated recently in my presence, that upon some of this 
land which had always been regarded as so poor that it must have been created solely 
to hold the world together, there w T as grown this year a crop of sixty bushels of winter 
oats per acre. Everywhere within this region, where proper skill has been exercised, 
all of the truck crops of Tidewater grow in the greatest perfection. I have already 
spoken of the great tobacco interest centered here, and merely revert to it to say that 
I have seen tobacco crops of the finest dark shipping grades, yielding from 500 to 800 
pounds per acre, grown on what were once run-down plantations, and crops of bright 
grades of from 300 to 500 pounds. These are not stated as average crops, because 
the average farmer is pursuing a system of robbery upon the soil, whereby he impov¬ 
erishes the soil and financially ruins himself and family; but these are statements of 
results which have been accomplished under intelligent culture; and how can I better 
use my time than to speak of what the soil is yielding, and thus point out its capa¬ 
bilities? I wish not to urge the excellence of this soil for tobacco culture, because it 
is my belief that what we need is less tobacco, and a better understanding of what we 
can do in other lines. 

The fruit industry in this section is scarcely to be mentioned as one of its money 
crops. Yet here is a soil which in its nature, mechanical texture, ease of drainage, 
etc., is without an equal in the State for many branches of fruit growing. It is not a 
winter apple section, but all manner of early orchard and small fruits can be grown to 
great perfection, and here and there are isolated examples of success already achieved. 
Melon raising and general trucking are practiced with remarkable success, so far as 
crop is concerned, where concentration of skill and effort are brought to work to¬ 
gether. Wheat and corn are staple crops, but much of the soil is now too much de¬ 
pleted of humus to grow these exhaustive crops profitably. Here, however, as in 
Tidewater, the opportunity for improvement is boundless and cheap. The black eye 
peas and crimson clover offer a quick and certain restorative of humus, and also serve 
to accumulate nitrogen in the soil. 

Lying next inland from Middle Virginia we have that beautiful section of country 
—Piedmont—the home in past generations of statesmen-farmers—who shall say what 
men it will bring forth in the future ? Immediately succeeding it inland lies the Blue 
Ridge. These two sections shade almost insensibly into each other, and form to¬ 
gether a combination of soils, exposures, and scenery which must be intimately known 
to be appreciated. The two, though having distinct features, will be treated together 
in my remarks. This section of the State differs so essentially in physical features, 
and also in soil characteristics from all of that portion lying seaward, as to form a 
striking impression upon the stranger who crosses the State for the first time. The 
foot hills comprise a great stretch of sharply broken country rising frequently into 
low mountains and detached spurs, traversed by rapid rivers and cut by narrow val¬ 
leys, nowhere presenting any continuous level surface. The rock is also of primary 
origin, but varies much from Middle Virginia in composition, and presents such a 
variety of formation that no common description can be strictly applied to it, yet the 
general characters are a rather stiff red soil, varying from heavy red clay formations 
to open porous chocolate soil, and gray flinty, gravelly ridges. 


16 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


The Blue Ridge region shades off in many places to black loam of great fertility, 
or shales and sandy benches of poorer character. The greater portion of these two 
sections, comprising 8,000 square miles of territory, is a naturally strong retentive soil, 
with areas of very rich land. The surface contour is mostly steep, and a careless 
system of culture has depleted the soil of humus to such an extent that it has lost its 
porosity and absorptive power. Hence, this region is marked in many places by un¬ 
sightly gullies, a standing reproach to the folly and lack of foresight of its cultivators. 
But on the contrary, I can point to some of the most beautiful country places of Vir¬ 
ginia within its borders, where rich, sloping hill-side and valleys are clothed with 
brightest green, or waiving in crops of grain, or bearing luscious burdens of fruit in 
orchard or vineyard. 

Here, as in the eastern portion of the State, it is the same story: exhaustive 
farming, wheat, corn, and tobacco have done their work upon the soil until it would 
almost appear that man was bent upon its ruthless exhaustion. Fortunately, all of 
the better soils in these two sections are practically inexhaustible. Man may deplete 
them, but the broken trap and epidotic rocks are so abundant in almost every foot of 
this soil, that nature is constantly yielding by their decomposition, fresh supplies, 
and that without limit. The soils of these two sections are often stiff clay, in many 
places too heavy for easy culture in garden crops or trucks; but they are ideal fruit soils, 
and, when rightly handled, so as to conserve their fertility, yield wheat, corn, oats, 
and all general crops, in abundance. Thirty bushels of wheat, fifty to seventy-five 
bushels of com, forty to sixty bushels of oats are grown with comparative ease and 
certainty on the best soils. Grass crops are grown without difficulty when once 
humus is restored to the soil sufficient to conserve its moisture and fertility. I have 
seen cattle fattened upon the winter pasture on the red-clay hills of Piedmont; and 
orchard grass and meadow oat-grass hold for years when well seeded upon these soils. 
It is not a natural grass country, but skill in rotation and culture never fails to cover 
it with a fine sward. Notwithstanding the fact that it is not naturally a grass country, 
it is now abundantly proven by example that it can be converted into fine dairy farms 
and sheep-raising, for the early lamb crop is one of the most profitable ventures of 
the good farmer. 

Upon the slopes of its hill-sides, in the rich coves of its mountains, practically 
throughout this entire region, there is unlimited opportunity to develop orchard and 
vineyard work. With these great opportunities of soil and climate, we have as yet 
but one special Virginia grape, the Norton, and the wine from it has made Virginia 
claret noted beyond our boundaries. In no other soil can this claret be produced 
with the same body and rich color as upon the soil of Piedmont Virginia. We grow 
table grapes to the greatest perfection, but we have developed none peculiar to this 
soil and climate. I feel safe in saying that it is possible to develop seedlings both of 
wine and table grapes upon our own soil which shall render these regions as famous as 
those small regions along the Rhine for their peculiar brands of wine. In orchard fruits 
we have one variety which stands out with great prominence in this section, namely, the 
Albemarle pippin, and yet I do not believe it to be the most profitable; but its charac¬ 
ter is superb; it meets a great want. Why is it not possible to develop others which 
may be as excellent in quality and more profitable ? I am certain that the peculiarity 
of soil and climate of this region is equal to the task; it only waits on man to exert 
his ameliorating care and knowledge along with the bounties of nature. 

I have spoken of the yield of grain; with fruits I will only mention that the com¬ 
mon average receipts from vineyards are forty dollars to seventy-five dollars per acre. 
Many phenomenal returns could be cited, but they would be misleading. Where ap- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


17 


pics were choice and well-grown I have known them to yield all the way from one 
hundred dollars to one thousand dollars per acre. The less figure is easily reached; 
the larger is not unusual. Stronger statements can be made. 

With this bare sketch, I must pass to a mention of the great Valley of Virginia 
and to Appalachia. These two physical regions constitute the limestone soils of the 
State, and contain more than thirteen thousand square miles of territory. I speak of 
them together for the sake of brevity, and because their soils have one predominant 
characteristic, namely, that of being chiefly heavy limestone soils. 

The region of the State, included within these two physical divisions, comprises 
the blue-grass country of Virginia, noted since the earliest times for its surpassing 
beauty and inexhaustible fertility. The soil of this entire region is largely composed 
of broken-down lime-rock, diversified here and there with admixtures of shales and 
sandstone. This section undoubtedly contains the richest soils of the State; not that 
their absolute productive capacity is so much greater per acre than that of the other 
sections, but that this soil stands exhaustive farming better than lighter granitic 
soils. This region is preeminently a grain, grass, and stock country. I have been 
able personally to compare it with the famous blue-grass region of Kentucky, and I 
must say that in elements of productiveness, abundant water supply, and the other 
natural resources, it is equal, if not superior, to our sister State. Its soil-formations 
are similar to those of the Hudson River and Mohawk Valleys, which, to my mind, 
have been made by the industry of man the most charming agricultural districts on 
this side of the continent. And we have here in our Valley and Appalachia all the 
elements that have made those regions prosperous, and more, we have a climate 
devoid of extremes, generously lavishing upon man more bounties than he appre¬ 
ciates. 

All of this country to the west of the Blue Ridge has long been considered the 
granary of Virginia. It was looked upon by Washington as a storehouse from which 
to draw supplies for the armies of the Revolution. 

The two contending armies in the war between the States made it a theatre of 
blood and carnage because of the supplies which it could yield. I mention this only 
to show how unnecessary is any laudation of its resources upon my part. 

From the Potomac southwest stretches this great valley and mountain region for 
three hundred and fifty miles, cut off by a wall, as it were, from eastern Virginia—a 
State by itself—capable of producing food and raiment, if properly developed, for the 
population of the entire Atlantic seaboard. 

Wheat, corn, hay, cattle, and horses have been in the past, and are still, the pro¬ 
ducts of this region. The soil has undoubtedly been run down in some instances, but 
it is no unusual crop to grow twenty-five to thirty-five bushels of wheat per acre; 
com and other crops are produced in like proportions. 

The cattle of this section, fed upon its native grasses, reach the highest perfec¬ 
tion. I speak only well-known facts when I say that the cattle of the Valley and of 
Southwest Virginia, especially the latter, often top the Liverpool market, and are 
eagerly sought by buyers for export. 

While this section is so justly favored for the products just mentioned, I must do 
it justice, and state that it is now in several sections developing the most extensive 
fruit-growing industries in the State. Contrary to former beliefs, here are grown upon 
soils, where their clayey character is ameliorated by an admixture of sand-rock, fine 
Albemarle pippins and all other standard orchard fruits. I have inspected single or¬ 
chards containing twenty thousand peach trees in fine, thrifty condition, and I have 
authentic statements of crops of apples which have yielded two thousand five hundred 
2 


18 


proceedings of the 


dollars per acre. Also, the fruit and vegetable canning industry of this section 
surpasses that of any other State south of the Potomac. 

While Tidewater and Middle Virginia can surpass the western part of the State in 
growing early vegetables, this section can, by reason of its elevation and cooler cli¬ 
mate, far surpass the eastern part of the State in producing late vegetables. Thus, 
within the bounds of our State we have, by reason of elevation, the advantage of a 
warm oceanic climate of thirty-six degrees, north latitude, up to that of forty degrees, 
north latitude. This fact is of vast importance in developing the capabilities of our 
soil, giving us the advantage of a succession of crop regions, covering a period of at 
least six weeks of time, progressively from the sea to the mountains. 

In the brief space of time allotted for this address, I have been compelled to con¬ 
fine myself to the merest generalities—to a glance, so to speak, at the changing pano¬ 
rama of our agricultural possibilities. To treat this subject properly would be the 
work of a large volume. In closing I wish to complete the sketch by adding a few 
facts gathered from statistics: 

Virginia has a land area, in round numbers, of twenty-five million acres. Of this 
less than one-half is improved. The number of farms is about one hundred and thirty 
thousand, seventy-five per cent, of which are worked by owners, and twenty-five per 
cent, by tenants. 

Our agricultural values are, in round numbers: farms, fences, and buildings, two 
hundred and fifty-four millions of dollars (this item has risen thirty-eight millions of 
dollars, or about sixteen per cent., within the last decade); implements and ma¬ 
chinery, six and one-lialf millions of dollars (this item has increased twenty per cent, 
within the last decade); live stock, thirty-three and one-half millions of dollars (this 
item shows an increase of twenty-five per cent, during the last ten years); and our 
total crops sold amount to about fifty millions of dollars per annum. There are no 
data with which I can compare this item. 

The above are large sums, and, though we hear so much about unprofitable cul¬ 
tivation, and I am sure there is much of this, yet these show a healthy growth. Still, 
we have fifteen million acres of land in Virginia uncultivated, and of that under culti¬ 
vation I have seen very few farms indeed worked to anything like their full capacity. 

Not one-half of our crop-production is on a paying basis, because of extensive 
farming and lack of skill. I fully appreciate the fact that prices have been reduced, 
by keen competition, below the rates at which we thought it possible to produce a 
profitable crop in the past; but this stern lesson of necessity will teach us to intensify 
our culture and to diversify our crops. 

Concerning high culture, I wish to state that I have not seen one thousand acres 
of land in Virginia that are thoroughly underdrained; yet all the experience of special¬ 
ists in highly-cultivated districts of other States, points to the great advantage and 
the real necessity of this practice if we wish to attain to a maximum of production. 
It is my belief that we have the natural advantages to make Virginia the California 
of the Atlantic coast; it remains to be seen whether we shall improve our opportunity. 

Is it not possible, and probable, too, that, with our great natural advantages, we 
have failed to catch the spirit that is born of necessity, and to improve our heritage 
as we ought ? 

I ask this question because we are here to-day presenting ourselves before the 
world as seekers after immigrants. We say that we want the waste places filled up, 
that we want this land to blossom as the rose; but whom do we wish to secure to ac¬ 
complish this laudable result? I would say, as one who loves the State of his adop¬ 
tion, Look carefully to those whom you would invite to be your fellow-laborers in the 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


19 


race for prosperity. Remember that the history and traditions of the Mother of States 
and of Presidents for two centuries were of her country life. Her sons whose names 
stand highest upon the roll of fame were her statesmen-farmers. 

In plucking at this desired fruit, beware that, like apples of Sodom, it turn not 
to “dust and ashes.” Have you not sons to the manor born, on whom it will be well 
to spend some missionary effort? 

Of old a certain ruler sent his sons and his nephew to consult the oracle to ascer¬ 
tain who should succeed him in power. All remember well the story of how Brutus, 
interpreting more wisely than the others, fell and embraced the earth. Whether this 
be truth or fable, it carries a beautiful idea, which I would have you dwell upon to¬ 
day. My fellow-laborers, would it not be well, along with this question of immigra¬ 
tion, to consider who shall be your successors; to listen to the prediction of the oracle 
of Delphi, and to ask yourselves, Which shall be first to embrace his mother? 


Forests and Forestry Products of Virginia. 

By Dr. John S. Apperson, Marion, Va. 

In the preparation of a report on the ‘ ‘ Forests and Forestry Products of the 
State,” we are met in the outset by the embarrassing situation attending the absence 
of reliable statistics. At most, only a cursory glance at some of the seemingly more 
important aspects of the subjects can be given, and nothing beyond this will be at¬ 
tempted. In this, as in all other matters pertaining to the material resources and 
economic relations of the State, no systematic effort has been made to collect facts 
and data with reference to these things that we ourselves ought to know and be able 
to give to the world. 

A large pamphlet entitled Virignia—a Hand-Book ,, published under the auspices 
of the State Board of Agriculture, 1893, has been useful to me in the preparation of 
this paper, especially so since it contains a very complete enumeration of the trees 
and shrubs of our Virginia forests. The census of 1880 and of 1890 (for the latter year 
only a simple abstract) have been frequently referred to, and a paper by Gen. J. D. 
Imboden on “Virginia,” found in the report on the Internal Commerce of the United 
States, and published from the Government Printing Office at Washington, has en¬ 
abled me to give a fair statement of forest distribution in the State. These, together 
with a somewhat general, though not minute, personal knowledge of its topography 
and timber trees, have been my main reliance and help, and wherever the report falls 
short of what it should have been, will be more to my regret than to that of any one 
else. 

The forests of Virginia have been conspicuous for their diversity, uniform distri¬ 
bution, the varieties of timber trees they contain, and for the estimate placed upon 
their products for domestic uses as well as their importance in the commerce of the 
State. Some one has taken the ground that, “It is a generally recognized fact that 
forests have always been important factors in the natural life, the civilization, and 
progressive development of the human race.” Be this extravagant or not, we do 
known that since the creation of man that they have been a source of comfort and 
help and blessing to mankind, whether civilized or uncivilized. Not to mankind 
alone, but to the whole animal kingdom they have supplied more of beauty and 
utility, and more of direct and indirect benefits, than we can enumerate. National 
wealth and national greatness have been guaged and estimated by the diversity and 



20 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


amplitude of the forests the nation owned, and notwithstanding the wonderful dis¬ 
coveries in the world of mineralogy and metallurgy, and the achievements wrought by 
the inventive genius of enlightened men in substituting other things for many of the 
products of the forests, especially metal and stone for wood, and oil and gas and coal 
for fuel, a great question has arisen with thoughtful men and with the legislative as¬ 
semblies of the nation: What shall be done for the protection and preservation of the 
forests of the country ? 

The importance of this question is intensified by the fact than less that three 
hundred years ago this was the best wooded country, in some respects, in the world. 
Probably in the whole area of the present Virginia there was at that time less than a 
square mile of tillable land but was covered by original forest growth, when to-day, 
out of something more than 20,000,000 acres, only about one-half (fifty-two per cent.) 
is in woodland, and much of this is second growth. 

Virginia, however, is far better off in this respect than many of her sister States, 
and in the different varieties of trees and the diversity of her forests she is excelled by 
none. In the oak trees alone, out of about twenty varieties in the Atlantic States, 
she has nearly all of them. From the Druidical-looking live oak of the Eastern 
Shore, with its wide-spreading branches and beautiful evergreen foliage, testifying 
the presence of a warm and genial climate, including the snarled black-jack of the 
poorer upland, to the majestic and useful white, red, Spanish, and chestnut oaks of 
the highlands, mountain slopes, and valleys. In other hard woods, too, she is yet 
well supplied. That I may not trespass on the limit set apart for this paper, I will 
refer as briefly as may be— 

1. To the distribution of the woodland of the State, the more common and valu¬ 
able varieties of timber trees, and some of the uses to which they are applied. 

The following, taken from the paper of General Imboden previously referred to, 
being an extract from the Statistical Atlas of the United States, 1874, approximates 
more nearly, perhaps, the distribution of woodland than anything I am able to get : 

(a), The country northeast of Piedmont, near Washington and Alexandria, has 
about one-eighth of its surface covered by woodland. 

(5), All the Valley of the Shenandoah northeast of Augusta county, and portions 
of the Piedmont region, Middle, and Tidewater, northeast of and including the Rap¬ 
pahannock Valley, the Eastern Shore, the basin of James River to Piedmont, the 
northern part of the Norfolk Peninsula, the Valley of the Dan from the North Caro¬ 
lina line to Danville, and an extensive region round about Lynchburg, have a little 
over one-fourth of its surface covered. 

(c), The valley from the Rockingham to New River “divide,” Piedmont, south¬ 
west of the Rappahannock basin, all of Middle Virginia and Tide-water not mentioned 
above, except the extreme southeast of the State on the waters of the Albermarle 
Sound, and the southwest corner of the State, has about one-half of its surface in 
woodland. 

(<?), The Blue Ridge from the North Carolina line and the Valley of the Shenan¬ 
doah to Roanoke, and all of the Appalachian region, except the drainage ground of 
the Big Sandy and the North Fork of the Clinch River, and upper watershed or 
Holston Valley, have two-thirds in woods. 

(«), The Big Sandy and the North Fork of Clinch basins, and a belt along the 
North Carolina line from the Roanoke River, including the Dismal Swamp, have 
about five-sixths of the surface covered by woodland. 

In this last-named division we have by far the best timber areas now in the State. 
We are told that the boundaries given are “mere generalizations.” Still, they are 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


21 


easily understood, and no doubt reasonably correct. We must also remember that 
the report was on the census of 1870, and some changes have taken place since that 
time, and that much of the woodland is second growth, particularly is this the case 
throughout Middle Virginia. 

In Tidewater section are quite extensive forests of yellow pine, oak, ash, cypress, 
cedar (sometimes called juniper), with locust, holly, and two or three species of gum. 
The uses of most of this list are too well known to remark further on them. The 
sweet-gum, owing to its fine, compact, reddish grain and adaptation to a high polish, 
is much used in the manufacture of furniture. This also, with other varieties of gum, 
furnishes suitable wood for wooden plates, berry baskets, light bowls, trays, etc., and 
as the trucking industry of this section grows in importance, these woods, regarded 
at one time as almost worthless, will be more and more in demand. Considerable 
quantities of so-called black-gum are also found here, but nowhere has it proved to be 
of much value except for wagon-hubs, hat-blocks, and back-logs. 

The supply of cypress, cedar, and pine of this section is still abundant, and when 
worked into shingles, wooden-ware, boards, and framing stuff, have already yielded a 
good return for money and labor expended, and will continue to do so for many years 
to come. In a few localities in the Tidewater section chestnut trees are found. 

In the Middle section of the State are found large areas of superior hard pine, 
black, white, and other oaks, hickory, locust, persimmon, gum, cedar, elm, sycamore, 
holly, birch, and other trees from which excellent lumber for various purposes has 
been made. This section has supplied an abundance of tan-bark and sumac. The 
short leaf, or hard yellow pine, furnishes its valuable timber in every part of Virginia, 
but does' not take exclusive control of large tracts of land as in Tidewater, except 
where it is found as second growth on lands which have been cultivated and turned 
out to commons or to grow up again. 

An interesting observation might here be made with reference to this ‘ ‘ second 
growth” of pine. Early in the history of the State, in colonial days in fact, settlers 
manifested a disposition to move back from Tidewater section further into the inte¬ 
rior of the State. Throughout Middle Virginia the practice obtained of cutting down 
original forests and locating large plantations. So soon as one boundary of land was 
worn out by an exhaustive system of cultivation, it was abandoned and another cleared, 
which in turn was also discarded. The abandoned lands were soon occupied by an¬ 
other growth, and though on an impoverished soil, it grew rapidly, and in some 
instances was so dense as to be almost impenetrable. I refer to the ‘ ‘ old-field pines, ’ ’ 
familiar to Virginians living east of Piedmont. As a young tree up to ten or twelve 
inches in diameter, it was all sap, soft and not durable, particularly when exposed to 
the weather. Later on, the lower limbs were thrown off by nature’s pruning, the heart 
developed, the wood became more compact, and fairly good timber was the result. 
Since the war much of this growth has been converted into reasonably good building 
material. A great deal of this has been cut for fuel, and when accessible to trans¬ 
portation by rail or water, has found its way into the larger cities, much of which is 
going North, where it is used as kindling wood. 

A good many years ago, I do not know how long, a peculiar insect or worm, 
known as the “pine borer,” began its ravages in the pine forests from Maine to 
Florida, and immense quantities of pine timber were destroyed. I remember well, 
when a boy, seeing large areas of these “old-field pines” absolutely killed. Some¬ 
times the effects were noticeable in irregular shaped patches, and strips of a hundred 
yards or more in width and of considerable length were made, presenting the appear¬ 
ance of avenues through the pine forests. The trees preyed upon died in a single 


22 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


season and decayed rapidly. In a short time the ground was covered with fallen 
trunks, rotting limbs and bark. Then followed, in a great many instances, a new 
growth of oak, hickory, dogwood, and other trees similar no doubt to those occupy¬ 
ing the ground originally. 

Quite a large amount of land in Orange, Louisa, Spottsylvania, and Caroline, and 
probably other counties, was in this condition when the late war closed, and the 
young saplings were in a proper state for making hoop-poles for casks, hogsheads, 
and barrels, and with sumac growing prolific throughout all Middle and Tidewater 
Virginia, a good revenue was secured to the people of that section. 

A story is told of an ex-army officer who owned several thousand acres of land 
located in the region below Piedmont, much of which had many years before been 
turned to commons, and undergone the changes previously mentioned. The major 
had formerly been in good circumstances, but in common with others he had suffered 
by the war. Returning home and finding his estate, except the land, well-nigh 
wasted, he, like many other Virginians, turned his attention to politics, and became 
conspicuous for his eloquence on the hustings; at the same time he took part in the 
hoop-pole trade. Two old comrades meeting a few years after, among other mutual 
inquiries was one after the welfare of the major. The reply was: “Oh! he’s getting 
on midlin’ well. He is living on high rhetoric and hoop-poles.” To what extent the 
major’s rhetorical flourishes supplemented his income I do not know, but it is literally 
true of a great many good men who went home that memorable spring of 1865, 
though they had escaped the dangers of the battle-field, they were brought face to face 
with an uncompromising alternative: it was hoop-poles, sumac, persimmons, or 
starvation. No historian will ever truthfully depict the sadness, disappointment, and 
weary toil the next few years brought to these people. How they lived and supported 
their families God alone knows. 

Leaving Middle Virginia, and going westward, we come next to Piedmont. This, 
with the Blue Ridge and the Valley, from the Potomac River on the north¬ 
east to the North Carolina line on the south, embraces some twenty-five counties. 
Here we find much original forest growth, and a fine quantity of both hard and soft 
woods: all the different oaks, with hickory, chestnut, locust, birch, now and then a 
boundary of yellow pines, a good deal of both black and white walnut, and some 
cherry. In addition to these, there are linn, ash, poplar, cucumber, dogwood, maple, 
buckeye, and elm; in fact, most of the trees found in the State, except such as belong 
exclusively to Tidewater. The white oak is especially valuable, and is used for ship¬ 
building and car-building, for wagon and plow timber, for staves for casks, whiskey- 
barrels, and oil-barrels. The other varieties of oaks come in for flour-barrel staves 
and heading, clapboards, fencing, and other domestic uses. 

In some parts of this division, not easily accessible to rail, good timber is still 
plentiful. 

All of the country west of this, comprising what is commonly known as Appa¬ 
lachia, and all of southwest Virginia, some sixteen counties, with Bath, Highland, 
and Alleghany, is well supplied with high-grade timber. Not a great many settlers 
had reached this region until towards the close of the last century. The face of the 
country is broken by high mountain ranges, and railway transportation has been slow 
in penetrating its recesses. It is remarkably well watered. On the sloping ridges 
and intervening gorges, and in the long narrow valleys, nearly all the varieties of oak 
are found, especially the four or five supplying the best material for lumber. Yellow 
poplar, hemlock, walnut, linn, cucumber, ash, hickory, sycamore, birch, sugar-maple, 
and locust, all grow in large quantities and as near perfection as possible. Occasion- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


23 


ally white and yellow pine is found, but the trees are sparsely distributed, and do not 
enter very largely into the calculation. In many places here, in these cool, shaded 
gorges, where the land is fertile and conditions are favorable, yellow poplar and hem¬ 
lock have reached their maximum growth, and are almost unsurpassed. 

On the rocky slopes of the mountains, chestnut-oak, prized for its thick bark, 
rich in tannic acid, grows in great abundance. The hickory tree, too, several varie¬ 
ties, is rarely surpassed in size, height, or texture of wood. In addition to these may 
be found most of the smaller trees and shrubs. Rhododendron and ivy are conspicu¬ 
ous, as are also the huckleberry and wild gooseberry. 

On the summit of the Black Mountain range is found the balsam fir, a magnifi¬ 
cent tree, growing frequently two or three feet in diameter, and at least one hundred 
feet in height; and with it maybe seen the black spruce, sometimes called “lash- 
horn.” It resembles the former, but exudes no balsam. Both of these are semi-arctic. 
They are found in Virginia only in the extreme southwest corner of the State, and on 
high altitudes. 

Since the advent of railroad transportation into this section the timber is being 
rapidly utilized, immense quantities being shipped away every year by rail: black walnut 
and yellow poplar, in the log, or sawn into thick boards or billets; oak, in the log, or 
shaped into stuff for ship-building, car-building, or other uses; hickory, in billets, by 
the cord, for spokes and handles mainly; locust, for fence-posts, hubs, and pins; 
hemlock, for framing; chestnut, for telegraph and telephone poles and for shingles; 
maple, cherry, and birch, for furniture; dogwood, for weavers’ shuttles and for sewing- 
thread spools; ivy stools, for billiard-balls and for pipes. The railways themselves 
have made heavy drafts on the young oak trees for ties for their own use and for 
roads outside the State; and more recently large numbers of chestnut-oak trees are 
sacrificed annually for the bark they furnish. Every section of the State abounds 
in wood suitable for wood-pulp. In this article alone a wonderful future is promis¬ 
ing. With this, which is hardly more than a synopsis, I must proceed to discuss for 
a short time— 

2. Some of the causes for the rapid denudation of our forests, and the heavy fall¬ 
ing off in the timber and wood supply which must eventually result in two or three 
decades at most, not alone by what is taken off and utilized, but in most instances by 
most inexcusable waste. 

Travelling not long since through a splendid forest of hard wood, my attention 
was attracted to numerous trees lying prostrate and rotting on the ground. Only a 
few feet of the butt of each had been taken; the remainder had been left, and was a 
complete loss. I was told that a company of stave-getters had been operating there. 
They sought only the finest trees and the best timber. My judgment is that for every 
one hundred staves taken more than a thousand feet of good white-oak timber was 
recklessly wasted. The damage done and the loss resulting did not always stop here; 
not unfrequently, in felling the stave-trees, a magnificent poplar, or hemlock, or other 
valuable tree was ruined. 

For several years a most heedless waste of timber may be seen in the wake of 
the tan-bark getter. Thousands of cords of tan-bark have been shipped from my own 
and adjoining counties, and I venture the assertion that not more than one tree in 
twenty has been profitably utilized after the bark was removed. It is not an unusual 
thing to see at steam saw-mills, after they have used all the slabs necessary in gener¬ 
ating steam, piles of refuse left nearly as large as those of selected lumber. The im¬ 
mense quantities of ties used in the construction and repair of railroads have laid the 
country, for miles on both sidqs of each road, under tribute for timber. The demand 


24 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


for heavier ties has been increasing yearly. What was regarded as a good tie twenty- 
five years ago is now often thrown in with the “culls.” A larger tie requires a larger 
tree, and more of the trunk and lap is left. 

It is stated in some statistics for California, that for every railroad tie costing 
thirty-five cents, one dollar and eighty-seven cents’ worth of timber is destroyed. 
This may not be true in Virginia, but I will tell you what is true: there are some 
3,150 miles of railroad operating in the State, requiring the use of at least 8,800,000 
ties. Every standard tie contains about five cubic feet of timber. This makes 44,- 
500,000 cubic feet, and the best and most thrifty trees in the forest are taken for 
this purpose. Ties have to be replaced not far from once in every ten years, on an 
average. At thirty ties to the acre—and this is a large estimate—it will take to sup¬ 
ply these all the timber from 294,000 acres of land every ten years, or from about 
29,400 acres every year. In this estimate switches and double tracks are not count¬ 
ed ; and the average of ten years for the tie in use will only apply to the best and 
most durable timber. 

Sometimes forest fires are allowed to burn over large districts, and considerable 
damage is done, not only by directly killing a great many trees, but by impairing the 
growth of others. Frequently when a field is to be cleared for agricultural purposes, 
the trees are girdled and left to decay. Some of these are used for rails, but many are 
still rolled together in heaps and burned on the ground where they grew. These are 
some of the instances in our State where a little thoughtful economy is most desirable. 
Few men, I take it, ever stop to think of the enormous quantity of wood required 
annually for different purposes by the people of this country. According to census re¬ 
ports, about 500 cubic feet per capita are used for domestic purposes. This fixes the 
amount for Virginia at 800,000,000 cubic feet. At fifty cords to the acre, and this 
is above the average, 125,000 acres of timber land will be cleared every year by the 
present population. 

Virginia has about 11,000,000 acres of woodland, or with no increase in popula¬ 
tion, enough to last about seventy-five years. Certain it is, before the close of the 
next century, the forests of Virginia will be entirely denuded, provided, however, there 
was no reproduction, which is hardly to be expected, will be more than sufficient to 
keep pace with an increase in population, unless European methods of forest preser¬ 
vation be adopted and rapidly enforced in this country. 

The following extracts taken from a well-written letter some years ago by Mr. G. 
W. Hotchkiss, Secretary of the Lumbermen’s Exchange in Chicago, ought to be in¬ 
structive to Virginians and Carolinians in consideration of the fact that if he is correct 
in the statement that the white pine cannot be reproduced while the long-leaved and 
“loblolly pine” (old-field pine) can be, and if what I believe is also true of the latter, 
that if left to grow until well matured it will be almost as durable and strong as the 
best hard yellow pine of to-day, then what better crop can we expect to grow on 
the thousands of acres of land in Middle Virginia than old-field pines? Here is 
afforded an unusual opportunity for a good investment and worthy the best considera¬ 
tion of the general government. No planting required. No special attention needed, 
but such protection as will prevent a short-sighted policy of ‘ ‘ killing the goose that 
lays the golden egg,” and such encouragement as will induce capital to become in¬ 
terested. 

Better would it be for posterity and for the future taxable wealth of the United 
States if the general government would extend the bounty of her hand and make 
annual appropriations for the growing and the protection of the forests of the country 
wherever climatic and other conditions were favorable. Germany and France have 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


25 


long since recognized the importance of such a step, and have well-equipped depart¬ 
ments for this purpose. The English colonies in Asia, Australia, Japan, and China 
have done the same thing. Millions of money have been expended by our govern¬ 
ment in the efforts to render shallow streams navigable, and millions more in the 
erection of not unfrequently sombre-looking structures of brick and stone and known 
as “ Government Buildings,” many of which, if reports be true, cost two or three times 
as much as they should cost, or would have cost as a private undertaking. Other 
modes of transportation even now are outstripping these inland water-ways, and the 
corroding tooth of time, a hundred years to come, will have defaced the ostentatious 
beauty and architectural grandure, leaving naught but crumbling ruins of these build¬ 
ings, while the forests, a great source of national wealth and beauty and inestimable 
utility, if properly cared for and protected for the same period, would be a splendid 
monument to the thoughtful foresight of the nation. I earnestly believe the represen¬ 
tative from this old Commonwealth who will take hold of this matter and press it 
upon Congress will confer a great benefit upon the State and her people, and send his 
own name down to posterity as a broad-minded benefactor. 

Mr. Hotchkiss says: “So far as white pine is concerned it occupies a position in 
forestry analogous to the Indian in the body politic, practically a thing of the past. 
One hundred years ago Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsyl¬ 
vania could boast vast forests of white pine. West of the Lakes, Michigan, Wiscon¬ 
sin, and Minnesota, so late as fifty years ago, were unbroken in forest resources, and 
the white pine predominated. To-day Maine gives us some spruce and a little small 
sapling pine such as would hardly have been sent for fire-wood in her palmy days of 
lumbering. Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York may still boast of occasional 

clumps of trees, but have lost all pretensions as a lumber-producing region.In 

Michigan and Wisconsin are still large quantities of hard woods, but it is being cared 
for with that appreciation of its value which is desirable. It has, however, this ad¬ 
vantage, it can be reproduced. Pines cannot.In Southern timbers both the 

long-leaved and loblolly pines grow, and can be reproduced in their native soil, so 
that the statement above that pine does not reproduce itself applies only to the white 
pine of the North. I know of no good reason why the government endeavors to foster 
and perpetuate large areas in the South would not be eminently successful. But it 
should not be delayed, as the wastefulness which has brought the white pine resources 
of the North so near their extinction, is rapidly doing the same for the long-leaved 
and ‘ loblolly’ pines of the South.” 

The prodigal waste of the timber resources of this country led the Bavarian Gov¬ 
ernment a few years ago to send to the United States a forestry expert to study the 
timber trees of this country. “ He explained the purpose of his mission,” as stated 
by Mr. B. E. Fernow, Chief of the Forestry Division, Washington, D. C., in these 
words : “In fifty years you will have to import your timber, and as you will proba¬ 
bly have a preference for American kinds, we shall begin now to grow them.” 

Clear it is to my mind, if we would leave to posterity a fair patrimony in timber, 
some steps must be promptly taken to prevent the destruction of the forest growth 
we now have, but just how this is to be effected is difficult to determine. 

3. The next division of the subject to which I shall call your attention is the 
commercial value of the timber and other products of the forests of the State. 

Here, again, we are left with the uncertainty of approximate estimates. An ab¬ 
stract of the census for 1890 puts the “ lumber and other mill products from logs or 
bolts” at a little less than $3,000,000, but we get from it no statement as to the value 
of timber shipped in the log, or for railroad ties, or for telegraph and telephone poles, 



26 


PliOCEEDIDGS OF THE 


piles, staves, headings, hoop-poles, and nothing for sumac, quercitron and tan-bark, 
or sassafras oil, ginseng, and other medicinal roots and herbs, and nothing for chest¬ 
nuts, chinquapins, walnuts, hickorynuts, or acorns, which are no small consideration in 
the fattening of swine, and no doubt other things I do not now recall. The aggregate 
value of all these is large, and will increase the amount to not less than $500,000 or 
perhaps $1,000,000 more. To this should also be added an amount used for fuel, fenc¬ 
ing, and other domestic purposes, for which it is impossible for us to fix even an ap¬ 
proximate estimate, except upon the basis heretofore indicated. 

By reference to the Hand-Book of Virginia for 1893, I find there were in fifty- 
seven counties of the State 859 saw-mills, an average of fifteen to each county. If we 
add for the forty-three counties not reporting this industry sufficient to make 1,000 
saw-mills in the State, and allow an average of 5,000 feet per day to each mill for 150 
days, the annual output of cut lumber alone will be 750,000,000 feet, which at 
$2.50 per thousand feet, as it stands in the forests, amounts to nearly $2,000,000, to 
which if we add the products of mills cutting staves, shingles, and other wood pro¬ 
ducts, will give us a result in calculation not differing widely from that of the census 
report above referred to. I give these figures as they occur to me, trusting the state¬ 
ment will be suggestive of the importance of adopting a system or plan for collecting 
data relative to the business of the State by which we can know more of her resources 
and progressive development than we now know. If the legislature does not take the 
matter in hand, then why cannot this Chamber of Commerce do it? It is composed 
of a body of intelligent and patriotic citizens, who have all her material interests at 
heart I am sure, and who have already shown a most laudable willingness to encour¬ 
age and foster every enterprise looking to this end. 

In computing the value of the forest products referred to in this paper, raw mate¬ 
rial alone has been taken into account, or what might be designated as direct income. 
Now, if it were possible for us to ascertain the value of the product after it has been 
cut and handled or shaped into articles of practicable use, representing mainly cost of 
labor and profit, or what might be termed indirect income, we would find the yield 
enormously increased. For instance, in my own county—Smyth—there are three 
establishments working on hard-wood products. Two of them manufacture wagon 
and plow fillings, the other, only pick and axe handles. I took the pains to inquire 
into the difference between the cost of the timber as delivered to them, and the value 
of the products after it had passed through their hands. The hickory wood in bolts, 
or blocks or cuts, is bought by these manufacturers delivered at about $6 per cord, 
and the white oak, cut in the log, or in billets, or bolts for spokes, at about $15 per 
thousand feet. One of these establishments uses from 400,000 to 500,000 feet of white 
oak annually. When made into axe and pick handles the average cost of the timber 
delivered, cutting and cartage having already been added, is something like $2 per 
hundred, the value of the article made up is $6 per hundred, an increase of two hun¬ 
dred per cent, above cost of raw material after delivery at the shop. Plow handles 
and plow beams one hundred per cent, increase; on wagon and buggy hubs made of 
locust over two hundred per cent.; on spokes and rims one hundred and twenty-five 
per cent. One establishment had a small exhibit at the World’s Fair last year, and 
through an introduction made there, has been shipping handles to England, and is 
now at work on an order for weavers’ shuttles, to be made of dogwood, for the same 
market. Let it be noticed further that these articles are not yet complete. Plow and 
wagon fillings undergo additional fitting before they are put in use. The same re¬ 
mark sometimes applies also to handles. Generally this is done outside the State, 
and from this step, though it adds still larger per cent., Virginians derive no income, 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


27 


either direct or indirect. This applies especially to the splendid walnut, maple, 
cherry, poplar, and other wood, possibly yellow pine and juniper, which Rgfve been 
sent in the shapes of sawn boards or in the log to a manufacturer outside the State, 
where it is converted into furniture or other articles of use, and shaped and turned, 
polished and varnished, and then returned to us for sale, and we buy, not a bureau or 
chair or wardrobe, in fact, but we purchase the other man’s labor. The truth is paiu- 
ful, but must be admitted. We rob our forests of the richest and best of their growth, 
turn over the products to the foreign manufacturer, then sit in idleness or talk politics 
until the finished article in furniture, farming implements, vehicles, handles of picks, 
axes, forks, and shovels is returned to us, and we buy, frequently on credit with an 
enormous per cent, added, then cut more timber to pay the debt. 

Now, the great question for Virginia is, Cannot this line of procedure be changed ? 
The old State does not lack in resources or adaptability. She is accessible on every 
side; she has abundant water-power in every section of her domain; her climate is 
all that the most exacting could wish; she is liberal in her expenditures for the edu¬ 
cation of her sons and daughters, xit lqast two educational institutions within her 
borders are now sending out to the world workers in wood and iron, young men com¬ 
petent to direct the running of wood-working machinery, with which are made, in 
addition to those articles used in connection with agriculture, transportation, and 
mining, indicated above, hundreds of articles in daily use, such as clothes-pins, boxes, 
cotton-spools, baskets, ferrules, penholders, rolling-pins, curtain-poles, broom-handles, 
canes, umbrella-handles, pipes, and toothpicks. Her daughters even are being taught 
wood-carving, and might, since woman has resolved to leave the sphere allotted to 
her in the beginning, ofttimes find employment in directing the movement of delicate 
machinery used in the shaping of these articles. 

In this way much of the timber now wasted might be utilized, and the State, in¬ 
stead of pouring her wealth of raw material into the lap of other States for their en¬ 
richment, would send forth her own manufactured products to the world, and would 
reap the reward herself. 

Clearly, every manufacturer who will locate even the smallest plant in the State 
ought to be encouraged, and by every way possible, and by legislative enactment to 
the extent of exemption from taxation on the machinery and on the product it yields, 
for at least from three to five years. This would not be much, yet it would be some¬ 
thing, and no doubt an inducement that many would appreciate. 

But the time allotted for this paper has expired, and I will leave the further dis¬ 
cussion of this part of the subject to the section on Industrial Advantages, and will 
close with the remark: There is yet in the old State the promise of a princely income 
from her woodlands. If she is wise, she will improve the opportunity, and will give 
every possible encouragement to the fullest utilization of their products. 


Mineral Wealth of Virginia. 

By H. D. Campbell, 

Professor of Geology and Biology , Washington and Lee University. 

Coal .— The most important, and at the same time the most extensive, mineral 
product of Virginia is coal, which has been well called the “ mainspring of civilization.” 

The existence of coal in Virginia was known as early as 1701. The first regular 
coal-mining in the country was begun about the middle of the last century, in the 



28 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


neighborhood of Richmond, and for many years the product of these mines was an 
important article of merchandise in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. 
Nothing definite is known as to the amount of coal won prior to 1822, but between 
that date and 1877 nearly 6,000,000 tons of coal were mined in the Richmond coal¬ 
field, being an average, according to Heinrich, of more than 11,000 tons per acre of 
ground worked. The Triassic (Newark) basin from which this coal was taken covers 
an area of about 189 square miles, in the counties of Goochland, Henrico, Powhatan, 
and Chesterfield. The James River divides it into two very unequal portions, the 
larger extending south to the Appomattox River, with a width of from seven to ten 
miles. Two or three seams of bituminous coal of good quality are supposed to exist 
throughout nearly the whole of this basin, with a thickness varying from less than 
three feet to as much as twenty-six feet. Mining has thus far been confined to the 
margins of the coal-field, where the rocks have suffered so much from faulting and 
crushing that Russell attributes the larger part of the failures which have attended 
the working of the coal in this area to that cause. The rocks in the central portion 
of the area are in a nearly horizontal position, which indicates that the coal, if pre¬ 
sent there, as seems probable, will be found in a much less disturbed condition than 
at the present mining points; but its depth maybe as much as- 2,500 feet beneath 
the surface. All will agree that the Richmond coal-field contains an immense amount 
of valuable fuel yet unmined. If the central area should prove as productive as the 
borders, the whole field would contain more than a billion tons of coal. 

Along the western flank of the Valley of Virginia occur irregular patches of semi¬ 
anthracite coal, in the counties of Bland, Botetourt, Montgomery, Pulaski, and 
Wythe; and thin beds of anthracite in Rockingham and Augusta, covering an area 
estimated at one hundred square miles. The semi-anthracite coal has been most ex¬ 
tensively mined in Pulaski county, and has been almost entirely consumed locally at 
the zinc-works and salt-works of that region. The high percentage of ash always 
present in this coal is said to be the principal cause of its not being more extensively 
used. The geological horizon of these coal-beds is the Pocono sandstone (Rogers, 
No. X.). 

Another coal area, far more extensive and important than either of those already 
mentioned, and forming a part of the great Appalachian coal-basin, covers the so unties 
of Wise, Buchanan, and Dickinson, and the northwest borders of Lee, Scott, Russell, 
and Tazewell, in Southwest Virginia. The eleventh census puts this area at two 
thousand square miles. 

The coal-bearing strata of Lee, Wise, and Scott counties form a part of the Big 
Stone Gap coal-field, as recently described by M. R. Campbell in Bulletin No. Ill of 
the United States Geological Survey. He divides Virginia’s portion of this coal-field 
into three basins: 

1. The Crab Orchard basin, including all the territory in Lee county lying north 
of Stone Mountain, contains two or three seams of coal, which present a fine appear¬ 
ance locally, but careful prospecting is necessary before their commercial value can 
be determined. 

2. The Imboden basin, including that portion of the field drained by the main 
branch of the Powell River, is considered one of the important coal-fields of the Ap¬ 
palachians. The famous Imboden seam of fine coking coal, varying in thickness from 
six to sixteen feet, extends throughout the whole of this basin, except where removed 
by erosion. This bed is generally above water-level, and its slope is such that entries 
can be made up the gentle inclination, and thus give perfect drainage, and easy trans¬ 
portation from the mines. Cannel coal of good quality also occurs in this basin, with 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


29 


a thickness of from two feet to six feet six inches. The Imboden coal-seam is now 
being mined in Wise county. 

3. The Guest River basin, including that portion of the field drained by Guest 
River, contains several seams of bituminous coal of excellent quality and workable 
thickness. Coal-mining is progressing rapidly in this basin at Coeburn and Virginia 
City, in Wise county, along the Clinch Valley Branch of the Norfolk and Western 
Railroad. In the Mineral Resources of the United States for 1892, it is stated that nine 
companies were mining coal at these two localities in 1893, with a total daily output 
capacity of 755 tons; the seams worked averaging more than seven feet in thickness. 

The coal of the Big Stone Gap coal-field is thought to be partly in the Upper 
Coal-Measures (Rogers, No. XV.), and partly in the Lower Productive Coal-Measures 
(Rogers, No. XIII.). 

Workable coal probably exists throughout Dickenson and Buchanan counties 
and along the western portion of Russell, although but little mining has as yet been 
done in these counties. 

The most famous coal-field in Virginia at the present time is that portion of the 
Flat Top coal-region which lies in Tazewell county. Coal was first shipped from this 
county in 1883, upon the completion of the New River Branch of the Norfolk and 
Western Railroad to Pocahontas, but coke was not shipped until 1886. It was a 
difficult matter at first to get the furnaces even to try the Flat Top coke, but its intrin¬ 
sic value soon broke down all barriers, owing largely to the publications of its merits 
in The Virginias. Now the Flat Top coal is generally recognized as being one of the 
best steam, domestic, and coking coals in the United States, or, I might even say, in 
the world. Tazewell county alone produced more than 1,000,000 tons of coal in 1888, 
but since that time the product has been less, owing to the opening of other mines in 
the same field in West Virginia. 

The Flat Top and New River districts form one great coal-field, covering an area 
of about 1,000 square miles, of which all, except the Tazewell portion, lies in West 
Virginia, near the Virginia border. The coal-bearing strata of this field belong to 
Rogers’s Formation, No. XII., which is the equivalent of the Pottsville Conglomerate 
of Pennsylvania. This formation is exceptionally thick along New River and its 
branches in West Virginia and Virginia, as are also the coal seams included in it. The 
No. 3 or Pocahontas coal-bed attains the great thickness of thirteen feet in Tazewell 
county, Va., yielding 11,000 tons of coal per acre of ground worked. This seam 
gradually diminishes in thickness as it proceeds into West Virginia. At least two 
other beds of coal of workable thickness exist in this formation, and are worked 
in the New River district, but at present they are not worked in Virginia on 
account of the superior quality and the greater thickness of the coal in the Pocahon¬ 
tas seam. It is said that coal can be mined in Tazewell county at fifty cents a ton 
and be sold at a profit at seventy-five cents a ton delivered on the railroad. Nowhere 
else in the world are the natural conditions for coal-mining more ideal than in the 
Flat Top coal-field. The coal is above water-level and the natural drainage is perfect. 
These large coal-fields along the western border of Virginia, being now so accessible 
over the Norfolk and Western and Chesapeake and Ohio Railroads, will necessarily 
be the most important factor in further developing the industries of the State, and will 
make of Norfolk and Newport News the great coal-shipping ports of the Atlantic coast. 

Perhaps a better idea may be formed of the extent and importance of the Virginia 
coal-fields if we call to mind the fact that the basin from which the coal for the Con- 
nellsville coke is mined occupies an area of only 136 square miles, and the whole of 
the anthracite coal-fields of Pennsylvania but 484 square miles, while in Virginia there 


30 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


are more than 2,000 square miles of coal-fields, a large proportion of which is under¬ 
laid with workable seams of bituminous and semi-bituminous coals of fine quality, 
besides about 100 square miles underlaid by semi-anthracite coal, of importance in the 
localities where it is mined. 

Iron Ores .—As an iron-ore producing State, Virginia ranked seventh in 1892, 
taking the first place as a producer of brown hematite. 

The brown hematite iron ores occur in Virginia in a more or less continuous line 
of deposits of variable and uncertain size along the western base of the Blue Ridge 
from one end of the Valley to the other; as extensive pockets among the Valley 
limestones of the Cripple Creek region in Pulaski, Wythe, and Smyth counties, and 
at a few other localities here and there; in the form of more continuous beds in the 
Oriskany formation (Rogers, No. VII.) among the mountains of Rockbridge, Alle¬ 
ghany, Botetourt, Craig, Giles, and a few other counties; as veins and pockets in 
Piedmont and Midland Virginia, where they have been but little developed; and as 
“ gossan ” in the counties of Floyd, Carroll, and Grayson. 

The red hematite and magnetic ores have not been extensively mined in the State. 
As the furnace industry will soon outstrip the easily-accessible brown hematite supply, 
if it has not already done so, the red hematite and magnetic ores must be developed, 
or ores must be brought from outside the State before many years. The Clinton red 
hematite beds occur in quite a number of the mountains of the Appalachian section, 
but they are usually thin, and have not been much developed. Not far below what is 
usually known as the Potsdam sandstone occur quite continuous beds of red hema¬ 
tite along the western, and occasionally also the eastern, slope of the Blue Ridge, but 
the ore is very siliceous. Veins also occur in the Midland section, having been 
worked along the James River below Lynchburg. Veins of magnetic iron ore, ap¬ 
parently of great extent, occur in the Blue Ridge, Piedmont, and Midland sections, 
but they have as yet been but little developed. 

Manganese Ores .—Wheresoever brown hematite occurs, the ores of manganese 
are liable to be found. It is not strange, therefore, that the State producing the 
largest quantity of brown hematite ores should also stand pre-eminently first in the 
production of the ores of manganese. In the Mineral Resources of the United States 
for 1892, Mr. Joseph D. Weeks says: “So far as explorations have been made, 
manganese ores have been found in Virginia over a much greater extent of territory 
than in any other of the United States. Virginia has more known deposits of this 
mineral, they are spread over a greater extent of territory, more localities have been 
worked, and more manganese has been raised than in any other State.” The 
greater part of the manganese mined in Virginia has come from Crimora, in Augusta 
county. The other principal mines have been from the same geological horizon 
along the western foot-hills of the Blue Ridge. Manganese ores have also been 
found in other divisions of Virginia, especially in the Midland section, in Campbell, 
Nelson, Pittsylvania, and other counties. We are probably justified in the expecta¬ 
tion that when the Crimora mines become exhausted other mines will be developed 
to keep Virginia in the lead in the production of this mineral. 

Limestone .—The lack of time forbids dwelling on the immense deposits of lime¬ 
stone, suitable for flux, making excellent lime, containing beds which make first-class 
hydraulic cement, others that make beautiful marble, with occasional strata of litho¬ 
graphic stone, and furnishing an inexhaustible supply of building-stone of various 
hues, and a good road metal for macadamizing purposes, besides being the source 
from which one of the most fertile agricultural sections of the State derives its soil 
and maintains its fertility. 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


31 


We have thus far reviewed the deposits of those minerals immediately connected 
with the production of iron and steel, the manufacture of the former being the largest 
metal industry in the State. It only remains to take a hurried glance at the other 
mineral deposits of commercial value, which, individually, may be of less importance 
than those already mentioned, but which, collectively, add materially to the wealth of 
the State. 

Sulphurets of Iron .—At present there is a growing demand for the sulphurets of 
iron, from which to manufacture sulphuric acid. The large deposit of pyrites in 
Louisa county is now being extensively mined for that purpose. The probably much 
larger deposit of another form of sulphide of iron is awaiting development in the 
Floyd-Carroll-Grayson plateau, in Southwest Virginia. In writing of this region for 
The Virginias, Prof. W. M. Fontaine says: “The Carroll county sulphuret deposits 
are by far the largest in Virginia. The most important of them passes a few miles 
north of Hillsville, or Carroll Courthouse, forming a nearly continuous band of almost 
pure sulphurets twenty miles in length, and ranging in width from sixteen to one hun¬ 
dred feet. Perhaps the average width may be twenty-five feet. . . . Other deposits 
of sulphurets are found, and, indeed, the amount of this material occurring in the 
more central and western parts of the plateau is immense.” The greater portion of 
the sulphurets of this region is pyrrhotite, a magnetic pyrites, which, in the pure 
state, would yield 40 per cent, of sulphur and 60 per cent, of iron. These veins 
are capped with a form of brown hematite, called “ gossan,” which often extends to 
a depth of from thirty to seventy feet. This brown hematite might be shipped to 
iron furnaces, as is already being done in several places, and thus more than pay for 
the development of the extensive veins of magnetic pyrites below. Moxham found 
the sulphurets from one such vein to contain 34.06 per cent, of sulphur and 53.15 per 
cent, of iron, besides a small quantity of silica, copper, and manganese. 

Copper .—Many of the sulphuret veins of the Floyd-Carroll-Grayson plateau were 
being mined for copper when operations were suspended on account of the civil war, 
and have not since been resumed. The reports made of that region at that time in¬ 
dicated the presence of copper in payable quantity. Other deposits of copper ores are 
known to exist in the Blue Ridge, Piedmont, and Midland sections of the State which 
it may pay to work in the future. 

Gold .--The gold-belt of Virginia extends from the Potomac to the North Caro¬ 
lina line, with a width of from fifteen to twenty-five miles. The principal counties 
in which gold-mines have been worked are Fauquier, Stafford, Culpeper, Spottsyl- 
vania, Orange, Louisa, Fluvanna, Goochland, Buckingham, Floyd, and Montgomery, 
the last two counties lying outside of the regular gold-belt. The gold occurs in 
quartz veins among the crystalline schists, being in the free state near the surface, 
and enclosed in pyrites lower down, from which it can probably be economically ex¬ 
tracted by the process of “chlorination,” now being successfully carried on in South 

Carolina. 

Not until careful scientific and systematic mining is carried on in the gold-belt, 
with the expectation of only a moderate profit, can Virginia hope to take a prominent 
place among the gold-producing States. 

Lead and Zinc ,.—Lead and zinc ores occur in Southwest Virginia, especially in 
Wythe county, in considerable quantity, where they have been profitably mined for 
many years. These ores are also said to occur elsewhere in the State in workable 

quantities. 

Barytes.— The demand for barytes, the powder of which is used as a white paint, 
and as an adulterant for white lead, is steadily growing. Virginia stands first among 


32 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


the United States in the production of this mineral, which occurs in Campbell, Bed¬ 
ford, Pittsylvania, Smyth, and a few other counties. 

Salt and Gypsum. —Salt and gypsum beds occur together in Southwest Virginia 
in Smyth and Washington counties. For many years the salt brine was evaporated 
and the.salt shipped, but recently works have been erected to utilize the salt for the 
manufacture of soda-ash and bleaching powder, for which all of the necessary mate¬ 
rials are near at hand. 

The deposits of gypsum are considered to be very extensive, and chemical analy¬ 
ses show the mineral to be of excellent quality. The larger part of the output of 
7,000 tons of gypsum in 1892 was ground into land-plaster and used for fertilizing 
purposes, but enough was calcined to make $7,000 worth of plaster of Paris. These 
deposits of plaster cannot fail to become of increasing importance to the agricultural 
interest of the State. 

Building and Ornamental Materials. —I can only refer in passing to Virginia’s 
immense supply of material suitable for building and ornamental purposes, much of which 
is being annually worked in large quantities; her beautiful granites, her gneisses and 
diabases, her limestones, marbles, sandstones, and slates, and her various deposits of 
clay. Nearly- every county in the State is within reach of macadamizing material fo r 
the building of good roads, the importance of which to the farming interests of the 
country is becoming yearly more appreciated. 

Other Minerals. —Other minerals of commercial value found in the State, some of 
which are now being mined, are ocher, soapstone, asbestos, mica, glass-sand, infuso¬ 
rial earth, and marls of various kinds. The future of the tin-ore veins of Rockbridge 
and Amherst is too uncertain to deserve more than a passing notice. 

Mineral Waters and Water Supply. —Virginia stands first in prominence among 
the Southern States in the number, variety, and value of her mineral springs. As 
places of summer resort they attract people from all parts of the country, thus bring¬ 
ing money into the State, and frequently permanent and valuable residents. A large 
sum of money has recently been expended in improvements at the Hot Springs in Bath 
county, making it a most atttactive place for visitors in summer and winter. The sale 
of mineral water from twenty-five Virginia Springs in 1892 amounted to $246,000. 

There are large numbers of springs, brooks, creeks and rivers well-distributed 
over the State, which is a most important factor in successful agriculture, and one 
that will become more and more appreciated when systematic irrigation is practiced 
by our farmers. 

At the conclusion of Professor Campbell’s address, on motion of Pro¬ 
fessor Allwood the Convention took a recess until 8 o’clock p. m. 


EVENING SESSION. 


The Convention was called to order by President Koiner at 8:15 r. m., 
who announced that the first address on the programme was by Professor 
Randolph, of Blacksburg. 

Industrial Advantages of Virginia. 

By L. S. Randolph, 

Mem. Am. C. E., Mem. Am. Soc. M. E., Assoc. Mem. Inst. Elec. Eng., Prof. Mech. 

Eng. Va. Agr. & Mech. College, Blacksburg, Va. 

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Immigration Convention: It is with 
great hesitation that I come before you to discuss the subject of the industrial advan¬ 
tages of the State of Virginia—a hesitation due principally to the extent of the subject 
and its exceeding complexity. To attempt to do justice to a subject so extensive as 
the one which I have been asked to present to you, would require far more than the 
allotted time for its preparation, and more than you would have to listen to it. It is 
incumbent, therefore, upon me to present the subject in a general way, illustrated by 
a few facts, and to confine myself to the meaning of industries covered by the word 
manufactories. 

A capitalist, manufacturer, or engineer seeking for the most advantageous loca¬ 
tion for a factory or manufacturing establishment, must consider and study carefully 
three fundamental problems: 

1. The facility with which the markets can be reached which he proposes to 
supply. 

2. The character and cost of the raw material. 

3. The cost of power. 

Let us see how Virginia will compare in these matters with the principal manu¬ 
facturing centres of the country. The manufacturing interests of the country may be 
said to have their greatest development or to be concentrated about on a line drawn 
from Boston to a point midway between Chicago and St. Louis, and this line may be 
divided into four parts. 

On the western end we find the bulk of the manufactories of agricultural imple¬ 
ments. Concentrated around Pittsburg, the iron works and manufactories of heavy 
structural materials. In the neighborhood of New York and Philadelphia the manu¬ 
factories of machine tools, stationary engines, locomotives, etc. Around Boston and in 
New England the finer class of duplicating machinery, light hardware, cutlery, cotton, 
and woolen goods. 

While there are notable exceptions to this rule, the general classification will be 
found to hold good, and the centre of any one particular business will be found as in¬ 
dicated. When we consider the causes which led to this distribution, it will at once 
become apparent why this peculiar arrangement should have occurred. We find the 

3 



34 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


manufacturers of agricultural machinery between their market and their source of 
supply for raw material, the market being the country immediately around them and 
the agricultural regions of the West and Northwest; the source of supply being, for 
lumber, Michigan and Wisconsin, and for iron, the Pittsburg region. 

The development of the manufacturing regions of New York and Eastern Penn¬ 
sylvania has been due principally to their proximity to the general markets of New 
York and Philadelphia, the goods manufactured being more generally distributed 
than the above mentioned; the source of supply being almost entirely, for raw mate¬ 
rial, the iron region of Pittsburg. 

In New England the presence of water-powers determined the establishment of 
the large cotton and woolen mills, and the demand for the intricate and complex ma¬ 
chinery needed for spinning and weaving soon brought about the development of the 
modern duplicating machinery, in which New England leads the world. We find, 
however, that where iron or steel is the raw material used, the iron region of Penn¬ 
sylvania is still called on. Follow this investigation as closely as we may, wherever 
iron or steel is to any extent the raw material used, we find the manufactories clus¬ 
tered close to the source of supply. This is not confined to this country alone, for we 
find that the remarkable industrial development of Great Britain is due, unquestion¬ 
ably, to the iron and steel development, furnishing an abundance of material and men 
skilled in working it for the manufacture of those machines upon which the other in¬ 
dustries depend. 

Let us examine, therefore, what advantages Virginia offers to the manufacturer 
whose raw material is iron and steel, and in doing this it is well to begin with the ad¬ 
vantages offered to the manufacture of iron and steel. 

Mr. Edward Atkinson, the great statistician, remarks, in discussion of the future 
site of the principal iron manufactures of the future, “That when the disparity due 
to taxation is removed, and the price of iron in Great Britain is as high there as here, 
the supremacy in the consumption of iron and steel, or its conversion into steamships, 
railway bars, heavy machine tools, and the like, may finally be established in the 
United States. When established within our limits, then the supremacy in the pro¬ 
duction of iron itself must go to the point where the facilities for working the mines 
and the cost of assembling the materials at the furnace are least, because at that 
point the highest wages can be paid for skilled workmen, accompanied by the lowest 
cost of production, which will be due to such favorable conditions.” 

As far as the supremacy in the United States is concerned, the last paragraph 
will apply to the present time. 

The cost of iron ore delivered at the furnace is given by McCreath as follows: 
Roanoke, $2.50 per ton: Cripple Creek, $1.60 per ton; Harrisburg, $4 per ton; Pitts¬ 
burg, $6.75 per ton—a net increase in the cost of the iron ore of over 175 per cent. 
The competition in the Lake Superior region has reduced this somewhat, but not 
very materially. 

By making a similar comparison in regard to fuel, we find the net cost of fuel at 
East Pennsylvania furnaces to be forty per cent, greater than at Virginia furnaces. 
The only region discovered, so far, which can compete with these figures is that of 
North Georgia and Alabama, which is, practically, the same territory. 

Going a step further, let us look at the advantages offered to the iron and steel 
manufacturer. Referring again to the figures of Mr. McCreath, we find from his very 
conservative estimates that the cost of producing a ton of pig iron as compared with 
that of Roanoke is as follows: at Pittsburg, 35 per cent, greater; at Phillipsburg, 
New Jersey, and Middle Pennsylvania, 34 per cent, greater; at Harrisburg, Pennsyl- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


35 


vania, 28 per cent, greater; in the lower Susquehanna region, 27 per cent, greater; in 
the Lehigh Valley, 35 per cent, greater. Recent market quotations show that these 
figures are not far wrong. 

The figures of Mr. McCreath have been referred to as very conservative. It may 
be well to state that Mr. McCreath gives, in many instances, the actual cost together 
with his estimates; and in each the former is greater than his estimates, which would 
make the percentages considerably larger. 

It is needless to go very far into the discussion of the subject of fuel. The fig¬ 
ures given for fuel for blast furnaces will be found to apply to rolling-mills and steel¬ 
works as well; and the value of Pocahontas coal for fuel is too well known to require 
any extended commendation here. The tremendous speed made by our war vessels on 
their official trials was largely due in many instances to the use of Pocahontas coal; 
and the best records for the trans-Atlantic voyage, both east and west, were made 
with Pocahontas coal. Attention should also be called to the fact, however, that the 
other coal-fields of Virginia compare favorably with those of other portions of the 
country. They are liable to be overshadowed by the reputation which Pocahontas 
coal has earned as a steam-maker. 

The advantages to be offered to the manufacturers of bar-iron and steel and struc¬ 
tural material can be summed up as follows: First , a remarkably cheap pig-iron of 
excellent quality; Second , a remarkably cheap coal of the best quality, very free from 
sulphur and ash. 

The markets offered to the manufacturers of this class of material are those of 
the whole United States, for Southern iron-makers are competing successfully with all 
other manufacturers of the country. There are other markets, however, which it 
will be their special province to supply; the growing demand in Virginia and 
throughout the South for structural material for mills, factories, and other buildings, 
and the demand for better bridges for our country roads (for Virginia will not long 
be contented with the present condition of her roads and highways), and the increas¬ 
ing ship-building industry at Newport News and on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. 

To the manufacturer of agricultural machinery Virginia, with her ample supplies 
of hickory, oak, and other hard woods, her proximity to the long-leaved Southern 
pine, her cheap and abundant supply of iron, steel, and fuel, can offer great advant¬ 
ages, and especially so to those supplying machinery peculiar to the agriculture of the 
South and the Southwest. Dr. Apperson, in his excellent paper on the forests of 
Virginia, spoke of plough-beams and handles and other articles of wood going to 
make up agricultural machinery being manufactured in this State, and shipped out¬ 
side to be fitted up and sold elsewhere. When we consider that castings can be made 
for less than a cent a pound, that bar-iron can be bought for about a cent a pound, it 
will be at once apparent that the advantages for the economical manufacture of agri¬ 
cultural machinery are remarkable. 

In the manufacture of cotton and woolen goods the advantages to be offered are 
not far behind those of agricultural machinery. While water-power is not so valu¬ 
able, as compared to steam, as it formerly was when the mills of Holyoke and Lowell 
were started, it still has great value; and the James River, as well as other rivers of 
Virginia, offers numerous and valuable sites for mills driven by water-power; and 
the cost of fuel should be taken into account, being about one-half that of New Eng¬ 
land. 

It should be mentioned here, although the statement applies to all classes of 
manufactures, that the cost of living, per individual engaged in the manufacture of 
cotton and woolen goods, is, as per the figures found in the report of the Commis- 


36 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


sioner of Labor, loss in Virginia than in any of the States mentioned, being for South 
Carolina 25 per cent, greater, as a minimum, to 74 per cent, greater for Khode Island 
and Pennsylvania, this being due to the decreased cost of the necessaries of life. 

The discussion has been confined to certain definite subjects, but nearly all that 
has been said applies with more or less force to the development of the various min¬ 
eral and other resources of the State. 

The question of markets has purposely been confined to those of the United 
States, reserving for special mention those which promise to be so extensively de¬ 
veloped in foreign countries. With such a harbor as is found *at the mouth of the 
Chesapeake, there should be no limit to the extent of the exports from that port. We 
can get some idea of the rapidity of the growth of this trade from the reports of the 
Norfolk Chamber of Commerce. From 1888 to 1892 the exports of lumber had in¬ 
creased 112 per cent.; of hay, 82 per cent.; of rice, 513 per cent.; of rye, 955 per 
cent.; of wheat, 380 per cent.; and, what i3 more thoroughly germane to our subject, 
the exports of coal had increased 100 per cent.; of pig-iron, 231 per cent.; and of 
coke, 240 per cent. 

While we cannot yet say that Great Britain no longer stands at the head of the 
industrial regions of the globe, the increasing cost of the better quality of ores for her 
furnaces, the great depth and temperature of her mines of coal, with the attendant 
cost of operating them, show that she must ere long yield up the markets which she 
now controls to countries better fitted to supply them. 

With the trade at the mouth of the Chesapeake growing as it has done, and that 
harbor the best on the Atlantic seacoast, it will not be long before Virginia will have 
thrown open to her manufacturers the control of the markets of the world. 


Navigable Waters and Resources. 

By Captain J. B. Baylor. 

United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. 

It is my privilege to speak to you this evening of some of the resources of this great 
inland bay and its splendid tributaries, upon whose shores was established the first 
permanent Anglo-Saxon settlement on the American continent, a settlement which led 
to incalculable results to the human race, whether regarded from a material, a social, 
or a political standpoint. 

If its shores were barren and inhospitable, and its waters as desolate as those of 
the Dead Sea, all which pertains to them would be of interest. But on the contrary, 
as Professor Brooks has said, “The Chesapeake Bay is one of the richest agricultural 
regions of the earth, and its fertility can be compared only with that of the Valleys of 
the Nile, the Ganges, and other great rivers.” 

It is the most prolific fishing ground of like proportions in the world. The total 
harvest from these waters of oysters alone has been over 150,000,000 bushels during 
the past ten years. This enormous quantity of valuable food has been practically a 
free gift from bounteous nature. 

According to the eleventh census of the United States (Abstract, page 180), 
$4,810,225 worth of oysters and fish were taken during the year 1889 from the Vir¬ 
ginia waters alone, and this on a total capital invested of only $3,429,409. Can the 
very richest lands of the West compare in productiveness to this on the same amount 
of capital invested? 



STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


37 


Virginia to-day holds 146,705 acres of natural growth oysters surveyed and duly 
recorded, and kept for the common use of all who may become citizens of this State. 
In return for this great privilege she only demands a nominal tax of forty cents on the 
hundred dollars worth of oysters sold. She still owns thousands of acres of territory 
suitable for the cultivation of the oyster, which she is prepared to rent at an annual 
rental of one dollar per acre to all who become citizens of the State, giving for a period 
of twenty years a title which cannot be disputed. 

During the fiscal year 1891—’92, from the very latest statistics carefully collected by 
the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, we find that from 916 pound nets alone, 
which cost on an average less than $250 each, when put in position, and which are 
run not infrequently by two men, $514,614 worth of fish were taken from the Vir¬ 
ginia waters. Sixty-two thousand and thirty-nine dollars worth of crabs, over $30,000 
worth of clams, and $18,494 worth of terrapins were taken from the same waters. Ex¬ 
clusive of oysters, over one million dollars worth of fish were sold, not to mention the 
canvas-back duck and great variety of other water fowl. All this valuable food has 
been furnished by the State of Virginia to her citizens free of all cost, save only a 
nominal tax on the assessed value of the apparatus used in taking it. The poorest 
immigrant can have on these shores an abundance and variety of food for the taking, 
which only the well-to-do can obtain in most parts of the world. 

But, Mr. Chairman, I have as yet said nothing of the transportation facilities 
afforded by these waters, nor have I dwelt upon the agricultural resources of the 
shores adjacent to them. 

A certain type of critics decry the use of statistics, but every experienced lecturer 
knows the value of his blackboard and chalk. 

Virginia alone has 1,145 miles of coast-line subject to tidal action. In Chesa¬ 
peake Bay proper, and in the waters tributary to it, there are owned and registered, ac¬ 
cording to the eleventh census of the United States, 1,483 vessels and crafts of 
various kinds, with a total tonnage of 170,520 tons, valued at $8,673,785, transporting 
in 1890, 10,953,431 tons of freight, and carrying 4,035,556 passengers. 

These figures are significant of much to those who live on the adjacent shores. 

The prospective immigrant can be sure that he will find here cheap and. certain 
transportation for the product of his labor to every market of the world. No great cor¬ 
poration can dictate to him what toll he shall pay. 

The captain of the largest vessel ever constructed can approach the capes of Vir¬ 
ginia with safety. He will hardly have to think of the condition of the weather, nor 
will he have to study his tidal tables to know the stage of the tide. He will find here no 
dangerous bar, upon whose improvement thousands have been expended, to delay for 
one single hour his entrance. He will find a great inland bay in which the navies of 
the world could lie at anchor, which has been traversed by the Great Eastern for more 
than 150 miles. He will not find it necessary to enter any great tidal dock to dis¬ 
charge with ease his cargo at any stage of the tide and with the wind in any quarter 
whatsoever. Should his vessel need repairs he can now find here the largest dry dock 
on the American continent, and one of the very best equipped ship-building yards in 
the whole world. 

At Norfolk and Portsmouth he will find two great trunk-lines of railway, one ex¬ 
tending to the remotest cotton region of the South, and the other to the central region 
of the great West, not to mention several minor lines. 

At Newport News he will find a trunk-line of railway permeating the West and the 
Southwest, with every facility for the handling of his freights and for the repairs and 
construction of his vessel. 


38 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


At West Point, on one of the many great tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, he 
will find a system of railway which permeates the whole South. 

Had these facilities existed in the early history of this country, in all human pro¬ 
bability what is now New York City would be on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. 

Let us see what has been their effect upon the freight tonnage of its ports. 
From the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury we learn that for the 
year ending June 30, 1893, there entered the capes of Virginia from foreign countries 
740 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 879,946 tons, bringing imports valued at 
$16,253,445. During the same year 1,032 vessels, with an aggregate tonnage of 
1,426,110 tons, passed through the capes of Virginia bound for foreign countries, ex¬ 
porting $90,899,652 worth of domestic merchandise, the product of agriculture, min¬ 
ing, forests, fisheries, &c. 

The business of the principal ports of Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries may be 
summarized as follows: 

For the port of Baltimore, where an inland journey of over 150 miles is necessary, 
1406 vessels either entered from foreign countries or cleared for foreign countries 
during the year ending June 30, 1893, exporting and importing $87,318,460 worth of 
domestic and foreign products. 

For Newport News, 142 vessels either entered from foreign countries or cleared 
for foreign countries during the year ending June 30, 1893, exporting and importing 
$8,144,253 worth of domestic and foreign products. 

For Norfolk and Portsmouth, 170 vessels either entered from foreign countries 
or cleared for foreign countries during the year ending June 30, 1893, exporting and 
importing $8,916,849 worth of domestic and foreign products. 

For Richmond, 29 vessels either entered from foreign countries or cleared for 
foreign countries, exporting and importing $2,488,586 worth of domestic and foreign 
products. 

This is exclusive of the immense coast trade, figures for which have already been 
given. The bulk of the trade of these ports has grown up within recent years. What 
may we not expect in the future? The shores adjacent to these splendid waterways 
are fast becoming a great garden for the people of the Atlantic coast cities and some 
of the western cities. Neither the Secretary of Agriculture nor the State Commis¬ 
sioner of Agriculture are able to furnish me with figures giving the value of the truck¬ 
ing interest of the tidewater counties of Virginia separate from the rest of the State. 

The superintendent of the Norfolk, Philadelphia and New York Railway fur¬ 
nishes the following figures: His railway transported from the counties of Aecomac 
and Northampton alone, in 1893, 639,369 barrels of potatoes. With those transported 
by water, we may safely say that these two counties sold over 800,000 barrels of po¬ 
tatoes in 1893. 

Mr. A. Jeffers, of Norfolk, Va., a recognized authority, sends me the following 
figures. He says: “In the year 1893, the trucking and market-garden interests in 
the fields thirty miles around Norfolk saved the city from panic, tided our moneyed 
interests over the crisis, and left our tillers of the soil in fine shape. The potato crop 
of 1893 brought nearly $1,500,000 to our people. The strawberry crop brought 
$1,000,000, and the aggregate of money received from kale, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, 
radishes, tomatoes, onions, peas, beans, asparagus, and the many other minor crops, 
was more than $5,000,000, saying nothing of the large local consumption. This great 
amount of truck was grown mainly from four counties, Norfolk, Nansemond, Prin¬ 
cess Anne, and Isle of Wight. Of this grand total, Norfolk county contributed 
over $2,500,000 worth—say $3,000,000 worth; Nansemond county, $1,000,000 to 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


39 


$1,500,000; Princess Anne, $750,000 to $1,000,000. Norfolk county, without doubt, 
grows the largest cash value of farm products of any county in the United States. It 
has the largest potato grower, 20,000 barrels were raised by him in a single year. 
Also the largest single corn grower in the South, who produces 50,000 bushels of 
shelled corn this year.” 

“Not over half of our truck land is in use. This trucking industry has been de¬ 
veloped principally during the past twenty-five years, as prior to 1870 it amounted to 
little. Its development began with three men from New Jersey, limited in means 
and experience. The industry in twenty-five years has passed the $6,000,000 mark 
per annum. At least three Norfolk county farmers and truckers have each dug from 
the bosom of mother earth more than $500,000.” 

Last season it required eleven large steamers each week to transport the vegeta¬ 
bles from the lower Rappahannock, a trade which has grown up in the last few years. 

Mr. Chairman, there is no part of the United States (I speak advisedly, I am 
familiar with the resources, climate, and with the conditions of the working people 
in almost every county of every State east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains), there is 
no part of this country that offers greater advantages to the immigrant than the tide¬ 
water region of Virginia. Nowhere else can be obtained more easily, not only the 
necessities, but even the luxuries, of life. 

In spite of all these natural advantages, and the fact that the assessed value of 
property increased 30.44 per cent, from 1880 to 1890, we find that Virginia only 
increased 9.48 per cent, in population from 1880 to 1890. The population of the 
United States increased during the same period 24.86 per cent. The increase in Vir¬ 
ginia is less than any State in the Union except Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. 
The average size of farms in Virginia in 1890 was 150 acres, of which 52.2 per cent, is 
unimproved. The average valuation of farming lands in Virginia was $13.32 per acre, 
including fences and buildings. 

Of the 502,917 immigrants who came to the United States in the year ending 
June 30, 1893, only 583 were bound immediately for Virginia. Only 1.1 per cent, of 
the popuation of Virginia is foreign-born. How are we to account for this? 

I do not believe that Virginia has ever properly advertised her resources. If the 
merchant of this city with the very best line of goods was to withdraw the commercial 
agents whom he sends out, he would soon find that his wares would remain unsold. 
Virginia must send competent agents to those sections and to those countries from 
which she thinks it desirable to draw immigrants. I have talked with immigrants 
in every section of the West, and have found in selecting their homes they were 
either induced to move through some agent—often the agent of some railway, 
who sought them out at their Eastern or European homes—or through the influ¬ 
ence of some friend or kinsman who had gone before them. There is a very 
common impression amongst these immigrants that the whole South is unhealthy, 
yellow and malarial fevers being regarded as universal. They believe the school 
facilities are poor. These false impressions must be removed. Companies should 
also be organized to guarantee titles. In whatsoever direction Virginia can afford to 
economize, she cannot afford to economize in advertising her resources nor in edu¬ 
cating her children. 

Mr. Chairman, I am an optimist in regard to the future of this country and in re¬ 
gard to the future of this State. It is a beautiful country, and so productive that it is 
capable of producing forty, fifty, and one hundredfold more than at present. 

It seems to me that there should be no serious concern in regard to what is called 
“the race question.” Of the 7,470,040 colored people who lived in the United States 


40 


PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 


in 1890, I find that already 1,801,709 of them are distributed over what may be called 
the North and the West. 

I have had occasion to study quite carefully the National Ledger of this country. 
There is no single entry which I have read with greater pleasure than that which 
gives the number of scholars that the State had enrolled in her public schools in 1880 
as 220,733, and in 1890, 342,269. In the light of these figures, we need have no fears 
as to the future of Virginia. 


Transportation Facilities. 

By Colonel A. S. Bufokd, of Richmond, Vikginia. 

I will have to throw myself upon the clemency of the Convention in asking 
your indulgence for not being able to present a systematic and written statement 
of views which I would like to offer to this Convention on the important subject 
which has been entrusted to my consideration for this evening. I have not had 
an opportunity to write a line, but I am full of the question. I have had opportuni¬ 
ties, in the course of my business life, to observe a great deal in reference to the 
matter of transportation. This is a very large question; it is a complex question; it 
is a most important question. It would be idle for me to undertake, in the short 
space of time during which I will be allowed to impose upon you, to discuss this 
subject in full, or to present any statistical representation of the whole question as it 
affects even the interests of Virginia. What I presume that this Convention is de¬ 
sirous of knowing is, what are the facilities for transportation most needed by the 
people of Virginia. 

We are here, not to make any display of ourselves personally, but here is a con¬ 
vocation of earnest and intelligent Virginia citizens inquiring as to the best way, not 
only to appreciate and understand the interests that they possess, but how to utilize 
and improve them, and how to enjoy them for themselves, and to transmit them to 
their posterity improved and not depreciated. We look around us sometimes, and 
the spirit of melancholy takes hold of us when we see our fields growing up with the 
evidences of waste and neglect, and our houses and homesteads in many districts fall¬ 
ing into decay; but, sir, I am happy to say that I catch with pleasure the echo of the 
sentiment of the gentleman who preceded me, when he spoke in regard to the future 
of this old Commonwealth. I sympathize with him in that feeling; I cherish it, and 
I lose no opportunity, in my intercourse with my fellow-citizens, in private or in pub¬ 
lic, to encourage and help on that conviction. It is said of us that we are very much 
addicted to praising ourselves and our State. I don’t think that the Virginian is 
characteristically an immodest man; and, sir, we have something to be proud of, 
something to value. I will say nothing at present of our history, of our personal 
characteristics as a people; but, sir, this old land of ours, which our ancestors came 
into possession of, is, beyond compare, the heart and bone of this American conti¬ 
nent, producing the results which have just been detailed by the gentleman who pre¬ 
ceded me, contributing to the wealth of the State, to her treasury, and to the history 
of the world. Now, sir, I sympathize with this sentiment of not only devotion to¬ 
wards a depreciating and descending country, but in the purpose to revive it, to im¬ 
prove it, to reclaim it, and to make it again what it once was—the most desirable and the 
loveliest land on this continent. And in this work transportation is a great factor—a 
great factor that moves mankind on the highways of improvement and civilization. 
Sir, if I were to take the time necessary to present to you some statistics in respect to 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


41 


the progress and advancement which transportation as a distinct movement has ac¬ 
complished, perhaps it would surprise the most intelligent of my audience. I advert¬ 
ed for a moment to-day to a standard work, to see what progress this great movement 
had made in the United States of America. This work of transportation, this loco¬ 
motion of individuals and of property, is all over, not only this .land, but the world, 
by land and by sea. We are commonly addicted to regarding only the higher classes 
of transportation—the railways, and the great steamships, and the great machines 
used in modern times in this movement. In 1830, within your life and mine, sir, 
there were 33 miles of railways in the United States. Within one decade following, 
in 1840, there were 2,818 miles; in 1850, 9,021 miles: in 1860, 30,626 miles, making 
an increase in that one decade of 21,605 miles; in 1870, 52,922 miles, an increase 
during that decade of 22,296 miles; in 1880, 93,286 miles, making an increase of 41,- 
364 miles; in 1891,170,601 miles, an increase in that ten years of this tremendous 
interest by 87,315 miles. In the year 1892, a part of the present decade, we had 175,- 
204 miles, adding during that year only about 4,600 miles; in 1893, 177,753 miles, 
adding during that year only 2,549 miles; and during this year we have not added 
anything to speak of. 

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, this is the way that one great movement, I 
call it, of transportation has progressed in our country. All over the world, emanat¬ 
ing largely in the impulses and influences which have carried it forward, this great 
interest has been making like progress in Europe, in Asia, and even in the far jungles 
of the darkest Africa. No place has failed to feel its influence. In it our own State 
has shared, not as largely as she might have done, perhaps ought to have done, but 
still liberally, in the march of this improvement. Let me say, before I come to the 
practical point of the discussion, that human intercourse is the method, the means, the 
only available means, and the indispensable means, of promoting human fellowship 
and human brotherhood. Isolation and barbarism retire before the movement of 
transportation, as the beasts of the field do before the pioneer settler and his rifle. 
Human intercourse, therefore, is dependent upon transportation. What has transpor¬ 
tation effected for mankind in the last thirty, forty, or fifty years? Why, sir, within 
your memory and mine, it was work to go from your home or my home in this State 
of Virginia, you in the Valley and I in the Piedmont, to a point on the Mississippi 
River: it was a greater undertaking in those days to make such a trip than it would 
be now to go from here to Central Africa. I can remember when in Southside 
Virginia the inquiry was, Who is going to West Tennessee? and any one who started 
off on a journey like that took leave of his home and his friends as if he never ex¬ 
pected to see them again. Now, sir, your freedmen, your ex-slaves, can take their 
satchels, or their handkerchiefs full of clothes, and go from here to Hong Kong, and 
work their way, inside of six weeks. Mankind is unchanged; his hospitality, 
knowledge, intelligence and community of feeling, grow out of this intercourse brought 
about by the facility of getting from one place to another by the means of the rail¬ 
roads and public highways; and by which one community is advised of the conditions 
and needs of another community, generating in the human heart everywhere that 
lively feeling which is the forerunner of every movement which adorns our modem 
history. Such is the factor we call transportation, and I don’t overstate it when I say 
it is one of the greatest and most important interests of the world, and has accom¬ 
plished more in the last fifty years than perhaps any other one factor. You and I, who 
have served our time in first one and then another department of life—in agriculture, 
in commerce, in manufactures—know that at the bottom of all human wealth are 
those factors that apply to mother earth. Commerce is the handmaid of agriculture, 


42 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


and transportation is the natural outgrowth of the two. What would commerce be 
without transportation? We have made perhaps more progress in the line of trans¬ 
portation since the age of steel than in any thing else, and will make greater strides 
still, now that we have electricity. Instead of the little craft with which Columbus 
sought the Western world, we have the great ocean racers, mammoth iron steamships 
floating hundreds of tons of pig iron used in their construction, and carrying you with 
more safety than you can now have in driving your horse and buggy from your plan¬ 
tation to your neighboring store. Now, sir, we have been participants in this im¬ 
provement, and while we have not made the advances that perhaps some other people 
have, yet we have gone along in the movement of the period, in the same respect in 
which progress has been made by most of our countrymen on this continent. But, 
perhaps, we have overlooked the fact that we have done too much work at one end of 
the line in the matter of transportation. We have excellent railways, and you can get 
on a train near your house and ride to any point in Virginia with ease and comfort; 
but if you want to visit one of your neighbors three miles back of you in the country, 
and depend upon the public roads to get there, you feel very much in doubt as to 
whether you will reach your destination in safety. Of all the facilities for transporta¬ 
tion that any people ever needed, the people of Virginia need internal transportation 
facilities, with emphatic emphasis. If 1 had the time and the opportunity, I could 
talk to you for hours on this subject. We come together here as fellow-citizens, 
friends, and neighbors, having a common interest in the prosperity of this whole State, 
our homes, our farms, our stores, our manufactories, and I must say of my fellow- 
citizens they have been very derelict in neglecting this one branch embraced in the 
great topic of transportation. You cannot have a good country anywhere, you never 
found any in your life, and you never will, unless they have good country highways. 
You cannot keep an industrious, intelligent, and prosperous people in a country 
where there are no good highways, and hence, Mr. Chairman, you will find many sec¬ 
tions of this State gradually thinning out, instead of filling up with a good class of 
hard-working intelligent people, as ought to be the case. In connection with the rail¬ 
roads, with which business I have been engaged until comparatively a short time ago 
for very many years, this subject of internal transportation has come to my observa¬ 
tion very frequently, and it has been a very mortifying topic of discussion to me, when 
I realize that the best people from other States and sections would come to Virginia 
and throw in their lots with us, contributing of their enterprise and intelligence, but 
are kept away because our own people cannot get from one neighborhood to another 
over the public highways with convenience. I tell you, sir, I have felt it as a personal 
inconvenience, and as a personal shame, as a personal mortification, and as a personal 
wrong to the interests of my fellow-citizens. 

A Voice: What is the remedy ? 

Colonel Buford: Ah, now you come to a question of very great importance, 
and extremely difficult of solution. But I want to say, Mr. Chairman, and gentle¬ 
men, I believe, and assert on behalf of my fellow-citizens of Virginia, that their in¬ 
telligence and energy and industry, and pride of place and home, are sufficient to 
induce them to find the way to accomplish the necessary object. I cannot say that I 
can give you the way, and I dare say that no suggestion could be made by the wisest 
gentlemen here that would meet with the unanimous concurrence of all, but my ob¬ 
ject at present, if I accomplish nothing else, is to leave the minds and hearts of every 
one present the feeling and sense of duty to himself and his posterity which will 
cause him to go to work on that question from now henceforth until a systematic im¬ 
provement of the public highway is accomplished. It cannot be brought about in a 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


43 


month 01 a year; it will take longer to get the roads in proper shape, but how 
are things like that accomplished? Only by digesting some intelligent plan and 
carrying it out by force of law. Talk about the voluntary cooperation of individuals, 
you can’t do the work in that way, there will always be found some skulkers. You 
w T ant some system digested by which you can, under the compulsory duties of the 
citizen, carry on the work of improvement. 

Now you need not make any very expensive roads at first, or at anytime. I don’t 
think the people of V irginia are able to submit to any expensive improvements, even 
in the direction of its internal transportation facilities; but a judicious expenditure in 
the improvement of the public roads will be returned over and over again in the in¬ 
creased value of the real estate in the section where such improvements are made. 
Now how will you get them ? I cannot undertake to tell you to-night; that requires 
to be digested carefully; but I will state to you again that I give you credit for hav¬ 
ing sufficient intelligence to enable you to devise a plan, if you will only determine 
that it shall be done. Have you made up your mind that you will do so ? If you 
have, it will be done. You may not do it in a month, nor in a year, but go to work 
at it just as religiously as you do any other work for your wife and your children, and 
you will accomplish it. 

I have been trying for yea.rs to get some action taken by which the least 
harmful and least vicious of our convicts could be employed in this way in counties 
that are willing to accept them for the highways and public roads. Our penitentiary 
is crowded now, and we are going out and buying farms on which to Settle them, and 
let them raise a few vegetables in the hope that it will result in the economy of a few 
dollars every year. It would be worth more to Virginia if about forty of these con¬ 
victs were put to work in any county in the State, and made to labor under proper 
supervision in improving the public roads. The result which would be accomplished 
in this manner in the space of ten years would be wonderful; the benefits incalculable. 
Georgia has not confined its convicts in penitentiaries for years. When a man there 
commits a crime he is, when convicted, put out at hard work, and not confined within 
the walls of the penitentiary, even when he has been guilty of a heinous crime, 
though I would not be in favor of carrying the system that far in Virginia. The re¬ 
cord of the judgment is sent up to the capitol, and the convict is sent to the work-place; 
he is utilized, and the result has been that a vast amount of value has been created. 
Now I say, suppose you had for ten years 500 of these men distributed throughout the 
State, making public highways. IIow t much value do you suppose those 500 men 
would add to the real estate of Virginia? Why, sir, I would not be surprised if those 
500 men in that time added $5,000,000 to the value of the lands. In the town of 
Charlotte, composed of fine, intelligent people, they have built first-class macada¬ 
mized roads for fifteen or twenty miles around, with convict labor, at little or no cost. 
I would begin in this way: I would have the legislature provide that the intelligent 
people of any county in this State could secure and utilize a limited number of con¬ 
victs for work on the public roads, without its being costly to the counties. I would 
let the State pay a reasonable share of the expense of maintaining those convicts, and 
give the counties their labor free in the improvement of the highways. 

Now, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I have already occupied more time than I 
am entitled to, and yet I am not through with the subject. I simply wanted to in¬ 
vite the attention of the intelligent people of Virginia to this most important feature 
of improvement. In my humble opinion you will have to get out of this rut before 
you can induce people to come into your State, and get the prosperity you are labor¬ 
ing for. I do not discount the many burdens that are oppressing the hearts of the 


44 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


people of Virginia—business disasters and business conditions for which we are not 
more responsible than others; but we cannot enter into that discussion now. I ap¬ 
preciate that condition of things. But I say this, sir: that in the progress of this 
question of transportation we have built railways: we have not as many as we abso¬ 
lutely should have, in some sections of the State, but still that is not the crying need 
at this time. What you do want is to have your country occupied—the intervals be¬ 
tween the railways occupied by a thrifty, intelligent people. This transportation 
business has gotten top-heavy—too much tail, I think. We have railroads in some 
places too costly, too vast, unless we keep up the sub-work correspondingly; we will 
have to fill up the vacant places. It is not worth while talking about building rail¬ 
roads until we have the traffic for them, We don’t want railroads owned by for¬ 
eigners running through our country, affording us no accommodation, and caring 
nothing for us because we give them no business; what we want is a country full of 
industrious, energetic, and intelligent people. Then, after we get from under the 
burdens that are now bearing heavily upon us—but I say that is not the question to 
look to now—I know a great many sections of Virginia will be profited by the con¬ 
struction of railroads, and those railroads will come. 

Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I beg your pardon for trespassing for such a 
long time upon you with this desultory, ill-digested, and crude presentation of my 
views. I desire to leave this impression on your minds, however: that there is no 
interest connected with the prosperity of the people of Virginia in their general busi¬ 
ness operations more important, and in my opinion so important, as the regular and 
systematic improvement of the public highways. 


Climatic Advantages and Health of Virginia. 

By De. E. A. Craighill, Lynchburg, Va. 

When the chairman of your committee so courteously conveyed to me the invita¬ 
tion to be with you this evening, all the promptings of my nature were to accept, not 
that I for a moment presumed to flatter myself that there was any message I could 
bring to you, original, instructive, or entertaining, but because the subject is one 
which commands my hearty interest, and I have come to sit at your feet and learn. 
Permit me to thank you, Mr. President, and your associates on the Committee of 
Arrangements, that you should deem me worthy to prepare and read a paper before so 
learned and intelligent an audience, and on a subject of as much importance as the 
“Climatic Advantages and Health of Virginia.” Owing to lack of time and limited 
opportunity, so many pressing duties crowding themselves into my busy life, it has 
been impossible to inform myself as fully as I would like to have done, and the im¬ 
portance of the subject merits. Hence, I am constrained to preface my remarks with 
an apology, because it is impossible, under the circumstances, to do justice to my 
subject, my audience, or myself. I propose, then, as concisely as possible, to state 
facts, borrowing ideas and appropriating information from such sources as I may, for¬ 
bearing to tire you with statistics or authorities. If by inadvertence or otherwise I 
fall into error, I shall gratefully apperciate correction from any source, because I 
want to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. 

It is unnecessary that I should remind you of the latitude (3G° 13' to 39° 27 / ) and 
the longitude (75° 13 / to 83° 370 Virginia, or that her territory is washed by the 
Atlantic Ocean on the eastern side; that it is located in the eastern portion of the 




STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


45 


Continent of North America, and that its greatest length from east to west is 470 
miles, and greatest breadth from north to south 192 miles. You are aware, too, that 
the area of \ irginia in round numbers is about 45,000 square miles, and her popula¬ 
tion approximates 1,000,000 souls. Possibly you may not know that less than a third 
of her population are employing themselves in “gainful occupations” ; but in making 
this statement due allowance should be made for the fact that census reports include 
children of all ages. It would be superfluous to tell you the names of her towering 
mountain peaks, or to say that the highest point in the State is in Grayson county, 
and is 6,000 feet above the level of the sea, or that the magnificent valley of the 
Shenandoah, with its teeming, fertile fields, ranges from 1,200 to 1,500 feet above the 
sea level. Vou know the names of her rivers and where they rise and empty better 
than I do. For our purpose to-night all that is necessary for us to know is, that this 
old Commonwealth of ours occupies a “happy medium” between the extreme cold of 
the North and the scorching temperature of the South. Our seasons are short; we 
are exempted from long-continued cold or hot weather; we have no long-continued 
rainy seasons, winter being just long enough and cold enough to be healthful and 
comfortable. It is exceptional when the heat of summer is long-continued or oppres¬ 
sive, and the intermediate seasons—spring and autumn—are as delightful in tempera¬ 
ture, and as conducive to the health of our people, as any section of the globe. While 
it is common north and west of us for the temperature to reach 50 degrees below 
zero, with us it is very extraordinary for it to reach zero. The lowest temperature 
recorded during the twenty-four years of the central office of the weather service in 
our State was 6 degrees below zero. The average mean temperature for January is 
37.5 and for July 77.8, a most satisfactory exhibit of our climatic advantage, for 
proof of which you are referred to our health statistics. While we are blessed with 
so many climatic advantages, one of the principle ones is the gradual, almost imper¬ 
ceptible, gliding of one season into another. North and south of us we read of the 
great and sudden changes of temperature, and, accustomed as we are to such gradual 
changes, it is hard for us to believe that in the short space of twenty-four hours it 
has occurred in some sections of the United States that there would be a variation of 
temperature approximating 100 degrees, and a change of 40 or 50 degrees in a few 
hours. With us a change of 20 degrees in twenty-four hours is exceptional, and 30, 
extraordinary. This equableness of temperature is very conducive to the health of 
those whose privilege it is to enjoy it, and the reverse is also true; the history of in¬ 
flammatory diseases, particularly, being that they occur more frequently and with 
greater violence and fatality in climates where the changes are so sudden and great. 
Diseases of the air passages and mucous membranes are also very injuriously affected 
by sudden and great variableness of temperature—pneumonia, diphtheria, croup, and 
kindred diseases often being the outcome. Persons with tuberculous tendency are in 
more danger than any other class from such sudden changes from moderate to ex¬ 
treme cold, and the ratio of deaths would be greater than it is in sections where these 
sudden changes occur but for the fact that all who are liable to, or already affected 
with, tuberculosis (consumption) naturally avoid such sections and seek milder cli¬ 
mates such as ours, thus raising our mortuary tables and lowering theirs. It is not 
unreasonable to say that there is no place on earth, population considered, where 
there is less sickness, fewer deaths, or where as many people live to great age as in 
Virginia. I have in my possession now what claims to be a well-authenticated list of 
nineteen persons who passed the centennial age, ranging up to 130 years, the oldest 
one, by the way, having died in this city (Richmond) at that extraordinary age. 
Whether or not such longevity is desirable, I am not here to discuss, but I can ven- 


46 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


ture the opinion, founded upon observation and experience, that, as a general rule, 
men and women on this mundane sphere are willing, indeed anxious, to remain just as 
long as the good Lord will permit, no matter how anxious they may seem to be, 
under some circumstances, to leave it. 

I know of no section of the country as free from epidemic diseases as ours. 
Some fifty years ago there was a very malignant form of typhoid fever, which origi¬ 
nated in Roanoke county, and was known as the “ Big Lick fever.” This disease 
spread, or rather took its course, in a narrow belt of possibly twenty miles width, 
through Roanoke, Bedford, Campbell, Charlotte, Halifax, and down through North 
Carolina, finally losing itself on the coast. This was a most malignant type of a ter¬ 
rible disease, and its cause has never been satisfactorily explained. But its effect 
was so dire as to leave one dead, as in Egypt of old, in nearly every household in its 
pathway: and it continued from year to year, with intermissions, for several years. 
My friend, Dr. A. I. Clark, of Lynchburg, published in the Virginia Medical Journal 
for July of this year, an exceedingly interesting and instructive account of this pesti¬ 
lential visitation. Again, some ten years later, we read of, and some of us remember, 
the yellow-fever epidemic in Norfolk and Portsmouth, when so many of the best 
people perished from its violence. I do not recall, nor can I find, any account of any 
other serious epidemic diseases having occurred within the borders of the State, if we 
except cholera in a few isolated places, produced by local causes, but never to the 
extent or duration to be regarded as really epidemic. How is it in other States of 
the Union, to say nothing of the terrible scourges that sweep over other countries ? 
Sometimes it is yellow fever, at others small-pox, cholera, grippe—every ill, in fact, 
that flesh is heir to. We hear of sporadic cases of all these diseases in Virginia. 
You may plant the seed, but it will hot grow and flourish unless there is something 
for it to live upon, and in its natural state the atmosphere of Virginia is so pure and 
health-giving, that whereas in some sections the disease kills the patient, here the 
climate kills the disease. It is my candid judgment that there is very little danger of 
our ever being seriously troubled by epidemic diseases of any kind in Virginia, where 
the air we breathe is so remarkably pure. In our Tidewater sections w T e have chills 
and fever, or, rather, such used to be the case; but these old-fashioned terms are dis¬ 
carded, and everything which the people called chills and fever, and the doctors 
called intermittent fever, is now known as “ malaria.” And how many ailments are 
called malaria when the right name is imagination? There are two diseases which 
are common to the world, and we are not exempted from them. These, in my judg¬ 
ment, are most to be dreaded, because more die from them than all other diseases 
known. I refer to typhoid fever and tuberculosis, commonly designated consump¬ 
tion. Medical scientists claim now that with proper sanitation and hygienic precau¬ 
tions every case of typhoid fever can be prevented, and that every patient who dies 
from it, or even has the disease, is the victim of his own or some one else’s careless¬ 
ness. So, under our natural climatic advantages, as the science of medicine advances, 
this dread disease will in time cease to be a menace at all; and when the germ is 
eradicated with the proper antiseptics, it will be as easily and certainly prevented as 
small-pox is by vaccination. It should be remembered always how much easier it is 
to prevent a disease, or any other evil, than it is to cure it; and there is no disease we 
know of where this is so strikingly illustrated as in typhoid fever. I refrain from 
tiring you with a dissertation on the germ theory, no matter how interesting it may 
be to me; knowing as I do that it certainly is not so to some of you. But I can state 
here that scientific investigation has established the fact beyond question, that 
typhoid fever is developed by swallowing the germ, while the seed of tuberculosis is 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


47 


planted by breathing into the lungs the atomic germ which is floating in the atmos¬ 
phere. The destruction of these germs, which is possible, will prevent the diseases. 

Whilst consumption is such a dreaded disease generally, I believe in our climate 
it is amenable to treatment, and may be cured just as others are. There are high 
authorities who do not believe in the hereditary transmission of this disease; but even 
if we had the time it would be out of keeping with our present purpose to repeat the 
arguments pro and con on this subject. I am certain I have seen the disease cured in 
Virginia, and with our climatic advantages, supplemented by the proper treatment, I 
have little hesitation in expressing the decided opinion that a majority of the cases 
can be cured, provided the disease is not too far advanced. We do not appreciate in 
Virginia what the ravages of this fearful disease are in other sections. The highest 
authority I know of says: “The time will come when consumption instead of slaying, 
as it now does, one-sixth of the whole human race, and more than one-half of all the 
adult population of most civilized communities, will dwindle down to an insignifi¬ 
cant item in the causes of mortality.” That time has arrived in Virginia now, and 
our mortuary tables every year exhibit a diminution in the number of its victims 
among the white people. The increased mortality among the negroes is only an in¬ 
tensification of the argument for the healthfulness of our Virginia climate in its natu¬ 
ral state, as I will try to explain further on. Thus we may hope that the two diseases 
most to be dreaded because of the fatality which they have heretofore occasioned, can 
be entirely prevented, and the time will arrive when these two evils will live only in 
the memory of the people. 

Scrofula, the twin disease to tuberculosis (regarded by many as virtually the same 
disease, though usually attacking different tissues of the body), whilst so common in 
other sections of our country and elsewhere, is not to be dreaded in Virginia, for 
really there is very little of it among the white people, particularly of the better 
classes, whose environments are such as to enable them to have food, clothing, etc., 
denied those less favored. But it is probable more negroes die with this and kindred 
diseases than from all others combined. And particularly is this the case in our cities 
and larger towns. In the last decade every city and principal town in Virginia in¬ 
creased in white population, and so far as I have been enabled to investigate, de¬ 
creased in colored population, notwithstanding the disposition of the latter to desert 
the country for the cities. A very singular fact is developed here: that where the 
white population has increased, the mortality is proportionately less, and where the 
negroes are fewer the mortality is increased, often to a considerable extent. The rea¬ 
son of this is not difficult to give, nor is the remedy hard to state. Bad and insuffi¬ 
cient food taken at irregular intervals, with approximate starvation sometimes inter¬ 
vening ; scanty, filthy clothing; badly ventilated, over-crowded, dirty hovels to live and 
sleep in; exposed to rain at all seasons, and to cold in winter, and super-lieated at- 
mosphere in summer. From such over-crowding is any other result to be expected 
than disease and death? If these poor people would go to the country where they can 
get work, and good food and clothing and shelter, filling their lungs with the health¬ 
giving atmosphere which our Virginia climate affords, is it unreasonable to believe 
there would be a difference in the mortuary tables of their race? It is no argument 
against the purity and healthfulness of our natural atmosphere that this class of Vir¬ 
ginia’s inhabitants should suffer as they do, because nature’s laws are as immutable 
as the everlasting hills, here as elsewhere, and he who violates and abuses them must 
suffer, the negroes in Virginia furnishing no exception. 

We are a greatly blessed and favored people, exempted as we are from so many 
calamities which visit sections north, south, and west of us. Every year we hear of 


48 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


sections of our country being visited with fire, pestilence, floods, storms, strikes, etc., 
but how rarely does anything occur within our borders to seriously disturb or distress 
us? Only a few weeks ago our profoundest sympathies were aroused because of the 
terribly destructive fire which swept over thousand of miles in the Northwest, destroy¬ 
ing hundreds of human lives and millions of dollars in property of all kinds. In Vir¬ 
ginia we cannot conceive how this could be possible there, for owing to the conforma¬ 
tion of the surface of our State it is impossible here. Events are rapid in their succes¬ 
sion, and while we are discussing this dreadful happening, and expressing our sympa¬ 
thy for those who have suffered, we read of another visitation, almost, or quite as bad, 
in the same section, from a cyclone, with its wide swath of death and destruction 
sweeping over several States, obliterating from the face of the earth whole towns in 
its mad fury, besides the lives of men and beasts, and millions of dollars in property 
of every kind. It is hard to realize what a cyclone is without witnessing it, or the re¬ 
sults of it. We in Virginia really know nothing of them, and there are thousands of 
our people who never heard of a cyclone pit—do not even know the meaning of the 
term. In many sections it is just as much an item of the contract in estimating for 
building a house to include digging a cyclone pit as it is to include the cost of the 
chimney. 

In quick succession, indeed, almost simultaneously with these calamities, we read 
of the hunicane which had its origin in the West Indies approaching our southeastern 
coast with its blighting blast, spreading death and destruction as it came. It marches 
onward in its carnival of death. We in Virginia are warned of the advance of the 
monster, and, like wise people, prepare for it. But what is the sequel? The storm 
hardly comes within the borders of the State. God Almighty, in his infinite goodness 
to us, issues his command to the winds once more as of old, “and they obey him.” 
The storm passes by us, and whilst our brethren south of us are mourning for their 
dead and lamenting the loss of their treasure, the people of this favored land enjoy 
exemption, not a life being lost and hardly a dollar’s worth of property of any kind de¬ 
stroyed within the borders of the State. Outside of it, God alone knows how many 
human beings lost their lives, and until the sea gives up its dead, no one can form an 
idea, already many bodies having been washed ashore. Even within a few days past 
one of the most terrific tornadoes that ever visited the tropics has thus swept by us. 

In the history of Virginia there have been very few storms of any kind—rain, 
hail, or wind—which have been very damaging to life or property. It is in name only 
that we know of blizzards, hurricanes, or cyclones, since they have never occurred in 
Virginia, nor ever will or can. There must be a reason for this. Our able and ac¬ 
complished Commissioner of Agriculture in his Hand-Book , which is such a mine of 
useful information, tells you so much better and more clearly than I can, that with his 
permission I quote: 

“The numberless lines of mountains from the Blue Ridge to the Cumberland, all 
the way across its extent, from up in Pennsylvania down into North Carolina, un¬ 
broken, protects the State against the cold winds, and storms, and blizzards of the 
Northwest. This barrier is absolutely effectual; they never reach this land. The 
peculiar formation of the Appalachian chain running southwest into South Carolina 
and Georgia, with ranges bearing west into Tennessee and Alabama, protects us from 
the cyclones that form in the heated waters of the Gulf and rush northwest. The for¬ 
mation of the southern end of this range of mountains turns the southwest storms 
either up the Cumberland range northeast, or across the Gulf States to the Atlantic 
Ocean.” 

Our climate and soil are such as to be favorable to the growth of nearly every 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


49 


plant the earth produces; and I have always thought there was a large and profitable 
field for experiment in the direction of diversifying our products. Many articles in 
every-day use, brought from abroad, and which have heretofore been regarded as ex¬ 
clusively products of other countries, can be profitably raised in Virginia. Tea cul¬ 
ture, for example, has been tried with fair success in some of the States south of us; 
but I am not aware that it has ever been attempted in Virginia. We can never know 
except by experiment what the result would be with us. Is it not worth trying? 
During the war between the States, when we were an empire within ourselves, shut 
out from the world, and thrown upon our own resources, we were compelled to use 
what we had or could procure; and it was a surprise to many what immense re¬ 
sources we developed. We had “ long and short sweetening” for our coffee and tea, 
the coffee growing in the goober-pea patch and the tea on our raspberry bushes, 
while the sweets grew in our fields on the sorghum stalk. In medicine, many of our 
indigenous plants were utilized as remedies, answered an excellent purpose, and have 
been in use ever since. My late friend and associate in business, Mr. W. A. Strother, 
known to many of you here, having been born just across the river anu raised in Rich¬ 
mond, has published the results of some of his experiments, one of which particu¬ 
larly I recall, where he gives an account of his planting the poppy seed in his garden, 
raising the plant, from which he manufactured a very good specimen of opium. During 
the war, I, with two others, were designated by the Surgeon-General of the Confede¬ 
rate States (Dr. Moore) to experiment and report on the indigenous medicinal plants 
of the Southern Confederacy. Our experiments were necessarily inextensive, and 
our report not very voluminous or satisfactory; but, as the ranking officer of this 
detail, I made the report, which is doubtless now stored with the archives of the 
“Lost Cause” in Washington, unless destroyed by fire when Richmond was evacu¬ 
ated. I also, by request, published the result of our experiments in a medical jour¬ 
nal published, I think, in Richmond. Within the past twelve months I have made a 
very interesting experiment, which is certainly worth carrying further than was possi¬ 
ble with my opportunities. Fenugreek is as marketable a commodity as flaxseed, 
and is more valuable—at least it will bring more money. Heretofore it has been re¬ 
garded as an exclusively Egyptian product, though some efforts have been made to 
grow it in other countries, but never in this, so far as I know. Lately, in handling 
some of the seed in my business, a few of them became scattered over the damp 
ground, and a day or two afterwards I observed they were sprouting. This suggested 
the idea of an experiment; and 1 carefully prepared a small space of ground and 
planted the seed. The result was as abundant a crop as ever grew in Egypt, and 
from the short time in which it matured, I am satisfied our climate and soil and sea¬ 
sons are such that two crops a year could be made. I have now in my possession, 
which was exhibited at the last meeting of our State Pharmaceutical Association, the 
only Fenugreek plant ever grown on the American Continent. I mention all this 
with a view of interesting my country friends, who are wont to complain about their 
two dollar and fifty cent tobacco crop and forty-nine cent wheat, and inducing them 
to experiment and vary their crops. I am satisfied that if they will plant the seed 
our climatic advantages will do the rest. I trust I am not invading another domain 
in saying this. 

Will any one say that the climatic advantages of Virginia have had nothing to do 
with the development and character of the illustrious line of great and noble men a-nd 
women who have illuminated and made glorious the pages of her history? Ever 
since Virginia Dare, the first white child born upon the Continent of America, on the 
18th of August, 1587, first inflated her lungs with the pure air of the infant colony to 
4 


50 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


the present day, Virginia has been the birth-place of the great men of the country. 
What section of the world, with the same extent of territory, can point to such sqns 
as her Washington, Jefferson, Marshall, Madison, Henry, Randolph, Clay, or her 
peerless Lee, her Jackson, Johnsons, Stewart, Hill, Ashby, or her Commodore 
Maury ? It was glory enough for an empire to have produced a Lee, but her sons 
have adorned the church and the state, the forum, the bar, art, science, and war. It 
would take all, yes, more than my allotted time, did I attempt even to enumerate the 
names of her sons who have made her name illustrious for all that is great and noble 
and true. Abraham Lincoln came very near being a son of Virginia. He was, in 
fact, her grandson. His father and mother lived in Virginia up to within three 
months of his birth , when they moved to Kentucky, where he was born. As Ken¬ 
tucky is the oldest daughter of Virginia, by the clearest reasoning Kentucky’s son is 
Virginia’s grandson, which has always explained to me w T hy “the martyred Presi¬ 
dent” was the big-hearted,-noble man I believe him to have been. No matter what 
we may have once thought and said of him, I am glad to bear testimony to the fact 
that this is now the honest belief of all good peeple in the South as well as in the 
North. 

Jefferson Davis was also born in Kentucky, and, by a singular coincidence, in the 
same county and in the same year with Mr. Lincoln. Is it unfair to assume that his 
greatness, his nobleness of head and of heart, may be attributed to the fact that he, 
too, was a grandson of the Old Dominion ? 

Born and reared as I was in Virginia, of course, as her loyal son, I am partial to 
her, and do not see her faults, if she has any. It has always seemed to me that there 
is no other place on earth where the sun shines as brightly, or where the birds sing 
as sweetly, or the flowers bloom as beautifully, as in dear old Virginia. If such a 
thing were possible as to build a wall around our whole territory so tall and so thick 
that it would be impossible for a human being to get over it or through it, our re¬ 
sources within our own borders are such that all our needs of every kind could be 
supplied. We have our mountains, with their high peaks towering heavenward, filled 
with coal and iron; our forests of choice and valuable timber of so many varieties; 
our teeming valleys and magnificent plains, with their wealth of wheat, corn, oats, 
rye, tobacco, cotton, vegetables of all kinds, fruits and flowers innumerable—indeed, 
nearly everything which grow T s out of the ground. Sleeping in her bosom, to be dug 
out by her children if they will, we have gold, copper, and tin, and lead in quantities 
sufficient to supply the world for generations to come. We have limestone, slate, and 
gypsum, so common and plentiful that we hardly note their existence or appreciate 
their value. We have, in inexhaustible quantities, marble, porcelain-clay, glass-sand, 
fire-brick clay, granite, soapstones, ochres, umbers, etc., etc. Our plantations are 
stocked with as good horses, cows, hogs, sheep, and fowls as are to be found any¬ 
where. Our forests, our harbors and rivers abound in all kinds of game, fowls, fish, 
and oysters, sufficient to support our population if we were cut off from every other 
source of supply. We have our health-giving mineral springs, hot and cold; the pur¬ 
est and the best water to drink—rivers of it. We have our churches of all denomina¬ 
tions, schools, colleges, and universities; and last, but by no means least, as noble 
men and women as ever lived upon the face of the earth. What more can the heart 
of man desire than we have here in Virginia? Everything is here in our midst for our 
comfort, for our health, and even for our luxury; but, friends, to enjoy all this, we 
must work for it; and we do not deserve the benefit, nor can we have it, if we toil not. 

It has always seemed to me that one of the happiest lots which can fall to mor¬ 
tality is to be blessed with the privilege of living in Virginia. I trust that I may say 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


51 


this without criticism, being a son of Virginia, and loving my old mother with all my 
heart, addressing a Virginia audience on a subject which should interest Virginians; 
and I do believe that, if there is a place on earth where the Lord God Almighty has 
poured out his richest bounty and blessing to his children, it is here in this Old Do¬ 
minion where we live. One of the difficulties is, that there is so much to enjoy that 
there are not enough of us to get the benefit; and, as I understand it, the object of the 
Immigration Society of Virginia is to have others come and share the blessings with 
us. To all good people, of whatever nationality, creed, or condition, permit me, in 
your name, to extend the invitation to come and cast in their lot with us. 


The Educational and Social Advantages of Virginia. 

By C. E. Vawtek, 

Superintendent of the Miller Manual Labor School of Albemarle. 

The educational advantages that Virginia offers to her native and adopted chil¬ 
dren to-day are peculiar. They are the result of the growth of centuries; they are 
not spasmodic nor effervescent; they are not the results of the war, as some might 
say; nor are they imported methods, following in the train of those dark days of re¬ 
construction when ignorance rode into power on the waves of fanaticism, and all the 
sacred heirlooms of our fathers were sought-for torches to light the pathway of the 
maddened mob. Thanks to the wisdom and conservatism of our Virginia leaders in 
those dark days, and to the generous and most noble aid of the President of the United 
States, Gen. U. S. Grant, we never saw those torches lighted nor even broken a link 
of that chain that binds us back to colonial days whose education and social life pro¬ 
duced a Jefferson and a Washington, and opened the way for a coming Lee. The foun¬ 
dations of religious liberty and liberal education were laid together in those early days. 
The experience of the Old World, through centuries of upbuilding, served to guide our 
fathers as they began steadily but surely to build for the coming nation, whose great¬ 
ness far surpassed their wildest dreams. Upon this sure foundation, involving the 
wisdom of the ages, avoiding the mistakes of the Old World and appropriating all the 
good that experience handed down, were built our colleges, universities, and high- 
schools. 

William and Mary, in the van of all Virginia’s coming glory, placed a light in the 
western world that guided surely and unerringly our ancestors to religious freedom, to 
law, and to liberty. Through the ages this light has never gone out, and now kindled 
afresh as well from the sacred past as from the glowing fervor of the present, it shines 
with renewed splendor and guides to-day most truly our youth into the very best 
methods of modern instruction, while it holds steadily to the curriculum of our 

fathers. 

Liberty Hall Academy, built in colonial days on the then extreme western borders 
of civilization, still lives, bearing aloft the names of liberty’s noblest defenders in all 

a g es _Washington and Lee; and unmoved by all the flickering falsities of money- 

worshippers and time-3ervers, she is steadily and surely educating our young men 
toward the manhood of the illustrious names she bears. 

But in the forefront of the educational forces of the State and of the South is the 
University of Virginia. Standing through war and peace, through sunshine and 
shadow, upon that sure foundation laid by America’s greatest statesman, her record 
for pure work without any sham stands unparalleled in American history. She has 



52 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


made men who think, and her sons stand among the intellectual leaders of the world. 
Perhaps no Faculty ever convened stronger in intellectual force than the famous one 
that Jefferson gathered from the best of the Old World to lay the foundation of a 
system of education that would place Virginia in the van of the world’s thinkers. 
Through all the years of over three-quarters of a century the successors of this 
Faculty have never swerved to the popular clamor of a smattering in education or to 
that fearful idea that pervades so widely in some sections of our country, where the 
youth are trained to do and not to think. She has found, as yet, no royal road to 
geometry, nor have her sons yet learned to regard the calculus as a mere machine, 
grinding out results by rule, and not by brain; nor does she teach that Taylor’s theo¬ 
rem can be taken as an axiom, as is done by those who employ substitutes in the battle 
of brains as some once did in the battle of bullets: nor does she teach that physics 
and mechanics are a compilation of formulae, amended from time to time from the 
supreme court of the world’s masters in intellect; nor that languages have no deeper 
depth than the chatter of the nations, best learned by babes; nor that moral philoso¬ 
phy has simply for its basis the doing of what seems best for one’s self without ever 
touching the royal law; that political economy means how to appropriate into one’s 
self in the easiest way possible that which another has earned; nor that drawing and 
designing need only such brains as are found in the tips of the fingers. The educa¬ 
tional work of Virginia has its inspiration in her university. But leaving out her high 
standard, her wonderful success in training young men to correct methods of study, 
and to become deep thinkers and careful and accurate investigators, and to see and to 
know the reason of things, leaving all these out, she has done a work in the estab¬ 
lishing of that high sense of honor that prevails there in her examinations that has 
become a wonder and a study for far saintlier institutions, and which is to-day a 
mighty leaven of truth and honor working in all the professions into which her sons 
have entered, scattered as they are throughout this nation. 

The church schools—Randolph-Macon, Hampden-Sidney, Richmond College, 
Roanoke College, and Emory and Henry College, have done a work in behalf of high, 
liberal education that cannot even be touched upon in the short space allowed. Suf¬ 
fice it to say, they did a work for good before the war in the educational field of Vir¬ 
ginia that we cannot measure, and they all are deeply rooted to-day in our educational 
system and in the love and veneration of our people. This is abundantly proven by 
their wonderful success since the devastation of war. Without endowment or the 
liberal appropriations that State institutions receive to-day, they are living to a great 
extent on their tuition fees, in the face of free tuition in all the State schools, and 
they are a mighty power for good in our educational system. He only shows his ex¬ 
treme ignorance of what is going on in his State who ignores the great work that to¬ 
day is being done by these venerable colleges of Virginia. In true, solid, substantial 
work of educating men, these colleges scarcely are surpassed anywhere, and their in¬ 
fluence has reached all over our Southland; and from all States in this Union come 
annually loving messages from honored alumni to their old Alma Mater in Virginia. 
They are potent factors to-day in Virginia’s upbuilding. 

The Virginia Military Institute that supplanted the old garrison that guarded 
our western frontier has a well-earned reputation not only for its high military train¬ 
ing which proved its great efficiency in our civil war, but also for very superior work 
in her scientific departments. But her alumni are her peculiar glory. They are liv¬ 
ing witnesses to her superior training. 

Right nobly has the State sustained her, and right nobly has she repaid the State 
in furnishing the highest specimens of manhood to guide her affairs in peace and to- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


53 


lead her armies in war. But, blotting out all her other glory, she lives immortal in 
“Stonewall” Jackson. Thanks to the liberality of the State, the Military Institute, 
notwithstanding the torch of war, still lives, sustaining the record of her glorious past 
and is among the strong inducements that Virginia offers to those seeking homes 
within her borders. 

Struggling for years under adverse circumstances and surrounded by a train of in¬ 
fluences prohibiting success, the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College with 
good purposes and poor results, was for years as similar colleges were in nearly all the 
other States, attempting an unsolved problem and vainly seeking by doubtful methods 
and false ideas of education to accomplish something in her peculiar field. 

The question that confronted the college was one difficult to solve. To train men 
to do and to think at the same time is a problem that looks amazingly easy, but that 
in reality is amazingly difficult. But the problem has been solved, not, however, by 
supplanting our old-established methods in Virginia (the best in the world for their 
purposes), but by grafting on to them the true idea of a technical school. Her day of 
usefulness is just dawning, and the youth of Virginia and other States are gathering 
there where they are taught both to think and to do; where true technical education 
is offered, where the best opportunities are given in her lecture-rooms and in her labor¬ 
atories, where men are trained to intelligently and skilfully do all that the combined 
intellect and skill of the age can do in mechanics, physics, chemistry, botany, biology, 
agriculture, etc., where enthusiastic teachers, abreast with the age, are leading our 
Virginia youth along lines that are to develop our wealth and scatter peace and plenty 
throughout our borders. 

To-day the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College offers advantages that 
are to be found nowhere else. Her military discipline, her technical training, her 
high grade in mathematics, and the theories of the sciences, the zeal, and push, and 
tone of her pupils, the high moral and social influences pervading the college, make 
her a glory to the State, and the far-reaching influence of her work in the develop¬ 
ment of agriculture and all the industrial arts will be a source of the greatest wealth 
to Virginia. 

Her influence is just being felt, and when our people shall learn of the advantages 
that she offers for almost nothing to all her sons, her borders will have to be greatly 
enlarged to accommodate those who shall seek her benefits. To-day, there are over 
four times as many pupils as were there three years ago. With zeal and hope she greets 
the dawning of a new and more prosperous era in Virginia, and extends a strong hand 
to help lift her to her glorious destiny. 

To tell of Virginia’s educational advantages and make no mention of her acade¬ 
mies and her old-field schools, would leave more than half untold of the powerful in¬ 
fluences that have contributed to the social, moral, and intellectual forces of Virginia. 

We could not, however, even name them, for they are legion. We could not even 
touch upon the strength flowing from them into the bone, sinew and marrow of our 
people. But they are at the foundation of all our educational forces and have made 
an impress upon our life that can never be effaced. The old-field school, what memo¬ 
ries cluster there! No first steps in numbers nor mental arithmetic ever entered 
there; but Pike in its purity was there, and Mitchell’s Geography, unabridged (no 
primary or intermediates), Murray’s English Grammar, and Bullion’s Latin Grammar 
and Reader were there, and the long, limber, lashing hickory was there, the most po¬ 
tential element in that day in the making of men. 

When the war closed, and a new order of things came upon us, not breaking from 
the old, but yielding to the new, instead of these old-field schools, came the public 


54 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


free schools, the same teachers, however, teaching, and the good of the old coming to 
the new, and the evil of the old buried out of sight forever. 

Thanks to the wise guidance of Dr. Ruffner and of his most able successors, we 
have to-day a system of public instruction that offers, free to all, black and white, the 
advantages of a solid foundation in education. The annual outlay for these schools 
is enormous, but right royally and most gladly is it borne. This machinery to-day 
carries the work everywhere, and places a school in every neighborhood. 

So deeply is our system of education imbedded in the hearts of our people, that 
no legislature nor political aspirant of any party has ever dared to do aught but en¬ 
courage and help the schools. But it is to be noted that these schools have their 
foundations down in the solid work of the past. They are a growth, inheriting the 
richness of the past, and bringing in all the good of the present. They come not to 
supplant, but to add to. 

Industrial training is slowly, but surely, becoming a part of our school system. 
Steadily all the best methods of teaching are being introduced, while drawing, design¬ 
ing, training in all the industrial pursuits, are rapidly coming, not to supplant, but 
to move apace with, the old curriculum of the books. 

We will not let go the old, for it is our life. But we grasp all that is good in the 
new. We seek not to cut loose our moorings from the anchors that our fathers let 
down, but we do seek to bring to our own aid all that helps to lift us higher. To this 
end the State has wisely built normal schools to train our young men and our young 
women for the work of training Virginia; while the summer normals in different sec¬ 
tions are annually infusing new life into the system. Gathering unto ourselves the 
wisdom of all sections of our own country and of the nations, they are infusing into 
the future men and women of our State the strength of the ages that is to lift Vir¬ 
ginia higher. 

But there is another field into which we have not entered, and we must hurry on. 
We cannot, however, overlook the work that is being done in Virginia for the educa¬ 
tion of young women. I am aware that some think that the day of coeducation is 
rapidly dawning; but Virginia makes haste slowly when asked to cut loose from that 
system which has made the mothers of Virginia what they are—queens in homes 
where quiet loveliness calms all the storms of life. She does not haste to lift the 
shield that guards the inner glory of her life, nor to bring to vulgar gaze the heirs- 
apparent to her thrones. 

Few States can point to such an array of schools, so finely officered, so well man¬ 
aged, and so thoroughly equipped for the education of women, as are found in almost 
every section of our State. Richmond, Norfolk, Danville, Winchester, Lynchburg, 
Roanoke, Abingdon, all boast of their superior advantages, while Staunton, in the 
heart of Virginia’s beautiful Valley, perhaps excels them all. That these schools, 
scattered all over Virginia, are most superior is proven in their results. The mothers 
of Virginia have been educated there. To be true to these schools, we cannot say 
less, and words would fail us should we attempt to say more. 

Perhaps the State Female Normal School at Farmville presents the most hope¬ 
ful feature in our progressing school system. Full of life, buoyant with hope, she 
trains in the most approved methods our Virginia women to teach our Virginia 
schools. The influence of this institution is far-reaching, and, now that it has been 
most wisely and well organized, the future success of the public-school system of 
Virginia is assured. 

But perhaps the most difficult problem that has ever confronted Virginia has 
been the education of the negro. It is true that, even here, our educational work is 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


55 


linked through the centuries to early colonial days; for we received into the first in¬ 
dustrial schools that America ever knew, from the slave-ships of England, both Old 
and New, savages of the lowest order that the greed of the saints brought to us, and 
through 250 years of training in these home schools, peculiar to us, we trained and 
educated these savages, the lowest of earth, until they became worthy to be the social 
and political equals of those whose ancestors sold them here, they themselves being 
the judges. But their election of social and political equals a thousand miles away 
does not solve the question, fraught with most fearful consequences, that confronts 
us at our very doors. 

From slavery to freedom the negroes came without their seeking. They scarcely 
had any more to do with it than with their original enslavement. The war left them 
adrift within our borders, helpless, homeless, and ignorant. Humanity as well as 
self-preservation demanded that they be educated. Had not fanaticism intervened, 
the work had been better and more quickly done. But Virginia is indebted to General 
Armstrong, of the Hampton School, for his work among the negroes. He taught 
them to do, in the best way possible, what they had to do. His school, in the line of 
teaching the negro self-respect and respect for his race, and that work was honorable, 
has had, and is having, an influence in Virginia that is of incalculable value to both 
races. Following in the line of his work is to be found the ultimate solution of the 
race question in the South. Through this liberal system of education, when the gross 
excrescences engendered of fanaticism shall have been lopped off; when General Arm¬ 
strong’s methods shall be universally adopted with the negro; when he shall be taught, 
as he is at Hampton now, and as he soon will be in all the schools opened to him, the 
industries of life, and to respect himself and his race, and to cease to long to be a 
white man, but rather to desire to be an honest, honorable negro, a credit to his race, 
and a worthy citizen of his (State, then the race question is solved, and America’s 
blackest cloud, engendered of the greed that brought the slave-ships to our shores, 
will vanish forever. Virginia to-day leads in the work that is rapidly to change 
America’s greatest curse into her greatest blessing. 

To-day she pays for the education of the negro $500,000. When this is expended 
in leading the negro along the line of personal self-respect, and of making an honest 
living along the avenues opened to him, it will result in a rich harvest. The hearty 
support that our present able Superintendent of Education is giving to this kind of 
work for the negroes is most auspicious of a lasting good to our State. 

Virginia spends annually for the maintenance of her public free-schools $2,000,000. 
She owns in district free-school property, scattered all over the hills and plains of 
Virginia, nearly $3,000,000. She expends annually for higher collegiate education 
over $200,000 in her State schools. The annual income from the permanent endow¬ 
ment funds of her schools amounts to more than $150,000. There is expended annu¬ 
ally in Virginia in her universities and colleges and high-schools by the pupils, in addi¬ 
tion to the above, over $2,000,000. There are 8,000 school-houses, nine male colleges 
and universities, and fifteen female colleges in Virginia. 

But we must be brief. We can only note our law-schools and our schools of medi¬ 
cine that have made Virginia’s lawyers and doctors famous all over our land; and her 
schools of theology which have filled her pulpits with the ablest and most consecrated 
men. These are mighty factors in the social, moral, and intellectual life of Virginia. 
These schools, by far the most famous of the South, if not of the whole country, are 
bringing students from all over the land to learn wisdom at the feet of Virginia’s 
sages. Her master minds in all her schools are many. But all professions, all 
schools, and all masters will pardon us if, of them all, we mention only one, who 


56 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


to-day, at the age of eighty-two, is making an impress upon Virginia and the nation 
that shall last forever, the beloved and honored Professor of Law in the University of 
Virgina, John B. Minor. 

The social life of Virginia is so thoroughly entwined with her educational work 
that we cannot study one without the other. Imagine, for a moment, the effect on 
our social life that would result from blotting out our University of Virginia. The in¬ 
spiration of our Virginia homes comes from her schools; the inspiration of our schools 
comes from our homes. The homes of Virginia, famous for happiness and hospitality, 
have survived all the wreck of war and all the changes of time. 

We have not so much haste and hurry as we find further North, but we have far 
more home-life, and get much more good out of the world as we go along through it. 
Virginians are a home-loving, God-fearing, law-abiding people. They may not be so 
rich in gold and silver as others, but none can surpass them in their home-life, hospi¬ 
tality, human kindness, and genuine old-fashioned honesty. 

In the Virginia home you find, as a rule, plenty of children, happy and healthy, 
and a home-loving, cheerful, devoted wife that beautifies it and makes it, however 
humble, a paradise for him who would die on its threshold rather than surrender it. 
To her educational advantages, which are rare and abundant, to her social life, free, 
open, kind, she most cordially invites all honest, true people, who are seeking homes 
in all the true meaning of that good old word, to a happy life within her borders. 

On motion, the Convention adjourned at 10:30 p. m. until Thursday, 
October 17, 1894, at 10 o’clock a. m. 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


57 


SECOND DAY—MORNING SESSION. 


The Convention was called to order by President Koiner at 10 o’clock 
a. m., October 17th, when the programme was further carried out by the 
delivery of the following addresses: 

The Class of Immigrants Most Desired, and the Sections of 
This Country from which it is Feasible to Secure Them. 

By Judge Charles Grattan, Staunton, Va. 

There are certain principles underlying the question under discussion that deserve 
to be considered in determining the class of immigrants we need, and the section of 
the country from whence they may be drawn. One of these is the natural desire of 
man, in changing his location, to seek for like surroundings in people, soil, and 
climate. The love of home is strong in the human heart, and the nearer the approach 
to it in the new country, the more satisfied and the more successful, and, therefore, the 
more beneficial to the adopted country, the settler will be. The Switzer is lost when 
out of sight of the mountains, and the Laplander would be an unprofitable immigrant 
for Florida. 

Another of these principles is, we may not look for an exodus from any part of 
one country to our own. We can only expect the natural overflow. Beside the love 
of home and the desire to remain amid the friends and scenes of early youth, which 
will keep the vast majority of our people rooted to their native soil, we must remem¬ 
ber that the exodus of a people is only accomplished by the influx of another to take 
its place, either by the strong hand of war or the milder measure of purchase. The 
first we do not desire, the latter we cannot expect, since the fact of large bodies of 
land being thrown on the market in any community lowers its value, and thus de¬ 
creases the desire to leave and the means wherewith to leave. In my journeys 
through the North and West, I found the inability to dispose of their lands the great 
obstacle to obtaining numbers of settlers for Virginia. 

Still another element in the consideration of this question arises from the inci¬ 
dents of locality that promote a desire to move, and from which objections we are 
free. Among these we may mention extremes of heat and cold. There are broad 
sections of our Western and Northwestern country, of amazing fertility of soil, that 
are liable to these objections. Blizzards that freeze marrow in the bones of the 
people, bringing untold misery while they last, and entailing suffering and sickness 
when they have passed; burning heat that upon rich soils clothed with luxuriant vege¬ 
table growth breeds malaria and fever, and leaves the strongest and healthiest stalking 
shadows, unfit for labor or for rest; droughts that parch the surface of the earth, de¬ 
stroying the hopes of the farmer; floods that sweep the product of the labors of the 
year to destruction, and leave the land bare of all things save the mortgage it takes 
to tide over and repair; cyclones that carry death and destruction in their path, leav- 




58 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


ing the sites of cities bare, the labor and the savings of years a wreck, with only 
enough living to bury the dead and mourn their loss. 

The next question to which we should address ourselves is the freedom of our 
own State from the ills we have just enumerated, and the wide field she offers to 
settlers from all directions by reason of the great diversity of her surface, soil, and 
productions. 

She is in large measure free from great extremes of heat and cold; the ther¬ 
mometer never rises or sinks so high or so low as it does in sections outside our 
borders and beyond our barrier mountains, even in the same belt, and notably so in 
the regions of the North and West. We have changes of temperature, but the bliz¬ 
zards of the Northwest are unknown. Our rainfall is well and evenly distributed, due 
in large measure to our situation. Having the Gulf Stream some short distance out 
at sea, the winds that come to us from the east are warmed, and take up their load of 
moisture and deposit it gradually upon the lands rising in elevation, and consequently 
sinking in temperature from the tides to the tops of the Alleghanies. These things 
combined give us a health record second to none in the United States, and largely 
superior to even our new States, whose population is largely composed of those who 
have passed the danger period of infancy, which, while a gain to them, is a consequent 
loss to us, as our bone and sinew have been largely expended in building up these new 
States. Mr. Waddell, in that valuable book, The Annals of Augusta County , says 
that in the days long past, when locomotion through our western new States was 
almost entirely on horseback, two Virginians from Augusta county rode through 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, and for only two nights of their journey stopped at a house 
of other than settlers who had gone from their own State. Maj. Peter Woodward, 
that veteran passenger agent for the Chesapeake and Ohio, who makes his head¬ 
quarters in Staunton, told me six or seven years ago that up to that time he had 
shipped over his route to the West, as probable settlers, over 700 souls from the little 
county of Highland alone. What, then, must be our health record, if, with the loss 
of all this good healthy blood to us and gain to them, we are still ahead of our west¬ 
ern neighbors? And what would be the condition of Virginia to-day if this tide of 
settlers, that has built up so much of our western territory, by proper education and 
inducements, had remained within our borders? 

No country in the world has such a wide extent of surface, soil, and production; 
so extensive a field of mineral lands, so accessible and so easily mined; so many, so 
varied, and so excellent fruits; such a wide surface and so profitable a field of fishery 
or such fine fish; and by reason of such variety offers such profitable and varied occu¬ 
pation. 

In the light of these facts and principles, let us begin the study of our subject at 
Tidewater—comprising one-fourth of the surface of the State, with 1,500 miles of nav¬ 
igable water-front, and so indented with creeks, inlets, bays, and rivers, that scarcely 
any portion of it is more than ten miles removed from cheap water transportation. 
The soil is alluvial and well adapted to the growth of all kinds of vegetables, all the 
small fruits and berries, clover and timothy;' and the higher ridges, forming the 
backbone of the peninsulas that compose this region, admirably adapted to the 
growth of early lambs, both from the mild climate securing early delivery and cheap 
transportation, giving these growers a monopoly of the early market. The fish and 
oysters of this section have a world-wide reputation, and the field is almost illimitable. 
These fields invite settlers from Eastern Maryland and Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
New Jersey, who are accustomed to soil and surroundings in some measure similar. 
In addition, you will find on the southern shores of Lake Erie, in Northeastern Ohio, 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


59 


a race of pure Yankees, descendants of Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont 
sires who have kept their first estate; are honest, industrious, frugal, and intelli¬ 
gent ; their soil is cold and thin, and, with their habits and our soil and climate and 
advantages, they would make our Tidewater section to blossom as the rose. All 
along the southern shores of the great lakes, and especially in Michigan, they will 
find it profitable to come to this section. This morning I saw in your market here 
celery from Kalamazoo, Michigan. You can grow it just as good and much cheaper 
around Atlees, or most anywhere in Tidewater Virginia. The Western Reserve of 
Ohio, already mentioned, will also give you good and profitable settlers for your 
sheep-walks on the higher lands of your Tidewater peninsulas. 

The settlers for your fisheries and who will cultivate your oyster farms, you will 
find all along the coast from the Virginia capes, but especially in Maryland and on 
the shores of Long Island Sound and the New England coasts. 

Middle Virginia, with a light soil easily tilled and that responds readily to the 
use of fertilizers and manures, and, when well handled, takes readily in clover, 
timothy, and orchard grass, produces all the vegetables, fruits, and melons of Tide¬ 
water, and besides is famous for its yellow tobacco, that brings the highest price in 
the market. It is finely adapted to sheep culture, and the early delivery of lambs. 

The countries already mentioned as furnishing settlers to till the lands of Tide¬ 
water will furnish good immigrants for this section, and, besides those mentioned. 
Central Maryland and the Connecticut Valley will furnish men suitable for the culture 
of the finer grades of tobacco; and Central and Eastern Ohio those well qualified to 
raise sheep and lambs, and supply the markets of the North with early lambs, which 
could here be shipped a month or six weeks earlier than from the Valley or the West, 
and thus command the high prices always paid for them. 

The soils of Piedmont are heavier and more rolling than those of Middle Vir¬ 
ginia, and besides the grasses and grains and fruits of that section, here grows in 
great excellence the heavy shipping tobacco that supplies the German market. This 
land is well adapted to all the grasses, and is a great corn-growing section, and well 
suited to feeding stock and dairying; besides, it is the natural wine and fruit-belt of 
the country. For her heavy tobacco, as well as her dairies, she should seek settlers 
from York and Lancaster counties and the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania; for 
cattle and sheep-feeding, from the rolling prairies of Iowa and Minnesota; and for her 
wine and fruit-growers, from Southern Ohio and Western New York. 

The Valley of Virginia is characteristically limestone, and her soil—heavy clays— 
well adapted to wdieat, corn, and the other grains; her great resource is the grass in¬ 
digenous to her soil, that stamps her a stock-raising and feeding and hay-producing 
section. The Cumberland Valley, York and Lancaster counties, Pennsylvania; Ken¬ 
tucky, the Sciota and Muskingham Valleys of Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas, should fur¬ 
nish her settlers; and as it has been demonstrated by actual test that the quality of 
the sugar-beet, which grows luxuriantly here, is higher in sugar-producing qualities 
than in other sections of the United States, she should seek the best sugar-growers of 
Nebraska. 

Appalachia, including the great Southwest, is a country of mountains and nar¬ 
row valleys, and sometimes wide, extended, and fertile plateaus. The finest and most 
fattening of grasses grow here, and she invites the stock-growers from North and 
South Dakota, Nebraska, and Minnesota, and the feeders of Iowa. 

Verv few persons, I suppose, have made any calculation as to the money value 
of an immigrant bringing $5,000 into the State to the State and county treasury. 
The State, at 40 cents on the $100 tax, can afford to issue her 3 per cent, bond for 


60 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


$666 and the county her 3 per cent, bond for $1,000 to procure such a settler, sup¬ 
posing the county levy to be 60 cents. Mr. President, you and I may not see the 
dear old State re-peopled by earnest, honest, patriotic people, the pick and flower of 
our sister States, for the shadows of the pathway of life fall to us from the west, and 
the snows of more than half a century of winters whiten our locks. But there are 
men who hear me now whose glad eyes shall behold 

“ These long caravans that never pass us by, 

And bear upon their camels’ backs the burden of the sky,” 

grow bluer still in the smoke of a thousand furnaces. The hills of your loved Valley, 
yellow with the golden grain that, through this fair city’s mills, shall find the mar¬ 
kets of South America tremble under the tread of flocks and herds that shall supply 
the shambles of Liverpool and London. The red lands of Piedmont take a deeper 
glow from the purple grape, the luscious peach, and the ripening apple as they blush 
under the ardent eye of the garish sun. Looking away to the east through Middle 
and Tidewater, they shall see our noble rivers like ribbons' of silver stretching 
through green carpets of tobacco and tasseling corn, and gardens "more beautiful 
than those that hung in Babylon, and more productive than those that bloomed 
around Amsterdam, far away to the sea, where the twin cities nestle amid the masts 
of a commerce greater than ever crowded the Mersey, and richer than ever choked 
the Clyde. 


The Class of Immigrants Most Desired, and the Sections or 
Countries Abroad from which it is Most Desirable to 
Secure Them. 

By Rev. Paul L. Menzel, D. D., Richmond, Va. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : The German-American As¬ 
sociation of Virginia, which I have the honor to represent in this Convention, con¬ 
sists exclusively of men who have either been immigrants themselves or who are the 
sons of immigrants. Some of us have been living in Virginia for a few years or 
months only, others for a much longer period of time, while the younger generation 
was born in this our beautiful Southland. But, without any exception, we are all Ameri¬ 
cans —all Virginians. We love and cherish the dear old State which we have selected 
in order to build up our homes on its hospitable soil. We are, perhaps, more able to 
appreciate the great blessings which a kind Providence has bestowed upon this land 
than those who never have lived elsewhere. We feel, therefore, most thankful for the 
great advantages which we enjoy here as adopted children of this old and glorious 
Commonwealth, and we are only too glad whenever we can do something in order to 
promote her welfare. 

Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention, the German-American Associa¬ 
tion of Virginia, which represents a considerable class of wealthy, intelligent and 
patriotic citizens of Virginia, wishes to-day, before all other things, to express its 
willingness to serve the common interests of our dear State by whatever means may 
be in its power. 

As to myself, I regret more than I can say that I am not able to present the views 
of our organization with all the eloquence of an English-born orator. You will have 
to bear patiently with the “broken English” of a foreign-born fellow-citizen. Still, I 
could not lay aside the invitation that was so kindly extended to me to speak here a 



STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


61 


few words. Since the leading institution of learning in our State conferred upon me 
in the most unexpected manner the high honor of a D. D. ; since I found myself an 
Alma Mater, a “venerable mother,” in this great Commonwealth, which is known all 
ovei the world as the mother of States and mother of Presidents, I feel twice duty 
bound, as a thankful and loving adopted son of Virginia, to devote to her whatever 
time and strength and power I may have, seeking not my own glory, but the further¬ 
ance of her interests as far as lies in me. 

And now allow me to try and give you our views, first about: 

“The Class of Immigrants Most Desired.” 

Before I crossed the Atlantic I had lived during thirty-five years in Switzerland 
and France, in Germany and Scandinavia, and seen other countries of Europe. Be¬ 
sides, I have thoroughly studied history—ancient as well as modern history. The re¬ 
sult of my observations and studies has been a profound conviction that at all times 
and everywhere agriculture is the solid foundation of all true and sound culture. 
This is clearly demonstrated by the teachings of history as well as by the present con¬ 
dition of all civilized nations of the world. Wherever agriculture is in a flourishing 
condition, commerce and industry, as well as the liberal arts aud the higher sciences, 
will develop all their resources, and, last but not least, sound morals will prevail. 
And again, in the same proportion as agriculture is neglected, everything else will go 
backward. 

Now, no attentive observer will deny that wonderful results have been attained in 
Virginia during the thirty years that have nearly elapsed since the close of the destruc¬ 
tive war between the Sta tes. This general progress, not only in agriculture, but also in 
all other branches of human activity, is all the more to be appreciated since great ob¬ 
stacles had to be overcome as a consequence of the unfavorable and deplorable condi¬ 
tion of affairs laid on the shoulders of our people during the sad period of reconstruc¬ 
tion. The negro elements of our population were not only freed from bondage, but 
also put on equal political terms with the superior Caucasian race. Their influence 
soon manifested itself both in city and country; their ignorance, indolence, and impo¬ 
tence stood and stand everywhere in the way of progress; they are utterly unfitted to 
contribute anything, especially towards the development of agriculture. Other forces 
are necessary towards such a purpose. But wherever they live in greater numbers, 
white settlers will not seek nor like to build up their homes. 

Hence it is no wonder that wide sections of our State are more or less in a de¬ 
plorable condition, some of them almost a barren wilderness. Every one who comes 
from the North will notice this fact as soon as he has crossed the Potomac River. 

Besides, our soil is, to a great extent, exhausted. This is partly the natural re¬ 
sult of the old methods of plantation times. Rational methods of farming, intelligent 
brains, hands used to hard work, are needed in order to bring about a general change 
for the better. We see what can be made of our land when we take a drive through 
the surroundings of our capital city on the James, and look at the beautiful farms— 
for instance, on the Nine-mile road, or elsewhere—where intelligent and skilful farm¬ 
ers, aided by the favors of our superior climate, have succeeded in such a wonderful 
manner. What a glorious and blessed State wouldst thou be, oh, Virginia, if every¬ 
where such hands were at work to turn the barren sections of thy land into the rich¬ 
est fields and the loveliest gardens! 

Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention, I am to speak about “the class 
of immigrants most desired.” Were these words meant as a question t It seems to 
me there is no question about that. The class of immigrants most desired ought to 


62 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


be farmers, honest and God-fearing farmers, industrious and intelligent farmers. Let 
settlements, numerous and well-organized settlements, of such farmers arise all over 
those counties where agriculture is so far from being what it ought to be, and there is 
no doubt that our dear Old Dominion will before long stand again where it used to 
stand one hundred years ago, at the head of all the States of our Union. 

But where shall we go and seek, in order to secure them! This brings me to the 
second part of my text (excuse the pulpit expression): 

“The Sections or Countries Abroad from which it is most Desirable to 

Secure them.” 

Of course you will all expect me now to compose or to execute a certain number 
of more or less melodious variations over the theme, “Go to Germany! ” and, indeed, 
it would be quite natural for the representative of a German-speaking association to 
say so: Go to Germany! Still, our answer is altogether different. We do not be¬ 
lieve in the advisability of sending any agents abroad, to whatever section or country 
it may be, in order to secure immigration. Those agents spend their time and the 
money that is paid out to them without any real beneficial result to us. They feed 
us with words and phrases, with hopes and expectations, but that is about all. De¬ 
sirable immigrants are such immigrants as come voluntarily , attracted by real ad¬ 
vantages that are already enjoyed by others; men of character and of steady habits, 
who will not lightly give up their former surroundings, but who then will give them¬ 
selves with soul and body, as soon as they have found solid foundations upon which 
to build up something substantial for themselves and for their dear ones. Such men 
need not be sought for; they are seeking for themselves. We need not go far away 
to look for them; they come and knock at our doors, ready to go to work if we only 
encourage them and give them a chance. Far in the West and Northwest the eyes 
of thousands of settlers are turned eastward with the earnest desire to seek and to 
find new homes in our midst. Letters of inquiry and of information are written and 
received daily. During the last few years not a few have even personally tried their 
good fortune. With their wives and children they came to us, bought some land, and 
went to work. But—but—many of them very soon went back again! What was the 
reason? They found little sympathy, and no encouragement at all. Difficulties were 
even thrown in their way. Others fell into the merciless hands of land-agents, who 
took from them whatever they had earned in the sweat of their faces. Nothing was 
done in order to secure to our State the useful hands of those people who volunteered 
to offer us their good services. Thus they became discouraged, and left. 

Since about a year ago an important movement has been organized in Dorchester 
county, on the eastern shore of our neighboring State, Maryland. Several colonies 
of western German farmers have been founded there under the auspices of some Ger¬ 
man clergymen, and with the assistance of many leading business men of Baltimore. 
Those Germans are poor, but industrious, thrifty, and hard workers. They have at¬ 
tained wonderful results in the short period of not yet a full year. From week to 
week a steady stream of new settlers comes there from the West, and many others 
are expected to follow, among them not a few who will come directly from the old 
countries in Europe. 

Why should not be possible for Virginia what has proved a great success in 
Maryland ? 

Mr. President, we do not wish to be misunderstood if we give the preference to 
Western and Northwestern farmers, and advise against securing immediate immigra¬ 
tion from abroad, at least on a large scale. We certainly think a great deal of the 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


63 


German farmer. Among those who know something about the development of Ameri¬ 
can agriculture there can be no question as to the German farmer’s usefulness, hie 
has made his influence felt all over our glorious country. He has opened to civiliza¬ 
tion one great State after another, from Pennsylvania to the Dakotas and Texas. 
Even in our own State, it is a well-established fact, proved by all the German names 
of places and persons which are still found there, that the prosperous condition of the 
Shenandoah Valley is due to the German immigration that came from Pennsylvania 
about one hundred and fifty years ago. 

The German farmer is intelligent and honest, industrious and thrifty, and, above 
all, a God-fearing man; he is fond of order and peace; is not an office-seeker, but 
always willing to sacrifice his blood and his good for the country of his choice, fie 
does not go to farming from a mere fancy, or from the passing inspiration of a mo¬ 
ment; he does what his father and grandfather have done before him, only with the 
improved methods of the present generation. He and his associates form a regular 
peasantry, with all the traditions of such a body, and will not readily leave the farm 
for anything else. Happy any commonwealth where such a peasantry forms the 
foundation on which everything else is built. We are of the opinion that everything 
ought to be done by our State authorities in order to create such a peasantry in our 
State; and, if we are not greatly mistaken, the present circumstances are exception¬ 
ally favorable. 

But the way in which this may be accomplished is not to induce, right away, a 
more or less considerable number of German farmers to leave the Fatherland and to 
settle in Virginia. Let us first give homes in our midst to those western farmers who 
have already become familiar with the language and the institutions of our great com¬ 
mon country. As soon as they begin to feel at home in dear old Virginia; as soon as 
they see their way clear before them; as soon as their efforts are crowned with suc¬ 
cess, they will draw from abroad the most desirable class of immigrants, without any 
extra exertion from our side. 

Let us, then, approach such men who are able and willing to serve as leaders; 
they even come to us of their own free will. Let us not shake them off by simply 
directing them to the land-agents, but let our Board of Immigration take the matter in 
hand , and organize in such a manner that this Board may provide for them desirable 
tracts of land, with good soil, good climate, good roads, and good communications, 
and, above all, good titles , in order that they may be able to build new settlements of 
thrifty white farmers there, where, up to the present day, nothing can be seen but the 
miserable huts of a few colored people, surrounded by a few acres of land in the most 
deplorable condition. 

We are fully aware of the fact that the German farmers of the West or North¬ 
west are not the only ones whose presence would be desirable. It is true, we do not 
believe that the nations of the Latin race, in Western and Southwestern Europe, or 
that those of the Slavonic race, in the east and southeast of that continent, ought to 
be encouraged to immigrate into our beautiful State. As tillers of the soil, most of 
them have achieved so little in their own countries that we would hardly be greatly 
benefited by them. But there are the English, the Scotch, and the Scandinavians, 
all those nations of the North who descend from one common parentage, and who are 
so closely related to us Germans that we might say about them, and they about us, 
what Adam exclaimed when he beheld Eve for the first time: “This is now bone of 
my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” What they have done in the West, as well as in 
their own countries, entitles them to the same recommendation that we are inclined 
to give to our German brethren. The only reason why we gave the Germans the pre- 


64 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


ference is, that we know that, with a little encouragement, there are many of them 
ready and willing to come now. And if we have anything to add to what we already 
have said about them, it would be this: No nation of the world is more apt to get 
acclimated and assimilated to its surroundings than the Germans, if you let them go 
their own way. None make themselves more useful without boasting of their merits, 
or claiming any rewards or distinctions. It is certainly more in the interest of the 
State than is generally acknowledged to secure that class of immigrants; and every 
aid that the State gives, especially at the beginning, will, before long, make itself well 
paid, yea, with more than a hundred-fold interest. 

Should our highly-esteemed Board of Immigration be willing to take into due 
consideration any plans for securing and encouraging the class of immigrants that we 
recommend, the German-American Association of Virginia will be happy to do what¬ 
ever may be in its power in order to cooperate in carrying out such plans in the best 
and most practicable manner possible. 

On behalf, and in the name, of the German-American Association of Virginia. 


The Manner in which Local Organizations can be Formed 
to Induce Immigration, and to Suitably and Successfully 
Locate Immigrants. 

By John C. Fowler, East Richmond, Va. 

It has been demonstrated time and again that Virginia’s greatest need is immi¬ 
gration, and it is high time that she should wake up and do something to bring set¬ 
tlers here and reclaim her waste places. And we all agree as to what class of immi¬ 
grants she wants. Every family that by any means is induced to come to Virginia 
may act as an advertisement for or against others coming here also. The causes that 
have induced people in the past to come here still exist, chief among which may be 
mentioned climate. And how many are drawn here alone by the knowledge they have 
that Virginia is between the extremes, that her summers and* her winters are all that 
a sane person could wish them to be. There is a long list of advantages to be gained 
by residing in old Virginia, but it is not for me to enlarge upon this topic. Another has 
been assigned this exhaustive subject. But how are people to know of the advantages 
of Virginia? The West and Northwest had attractions this part of the country can¬ 
not offer, that is, her free lands, lands which one could obtain for the settling upon 
them, and this may seem a great attraction, but when you count the cost in privations 
and sufferings the homesteader had to undergo before he got a home in any sense 
of the word, you will see it was an expensive method; but these inducements scat¬ 
tered broadcast over the land, attracted thousands upon thousands. Now this adver¬ 
tising was done largely and most efficiently by immigration societies formed and fos¬ 
tered by the several States. The railroads having lands advertised them extensively, 
and of course much is being done by the railroads here. 

It has been assigned to me to point out the best manner in which local organiza¬ 
tions can be formed to induce immigration, and to suitably and successfully locate 
them. 

Now, I have always held that we should have a State Bureau of Immigration, 
created and fostered by the legislature. And from this should radiate local organiza¬ 
tions; men interested in this subject should get together and form themselves into a 
society with a view to inviting immigration. An interest is awakened, plans can be 



STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


65 


made, lists gotten up, printed matter sent out, as California does. “Sow the coun¬ 
try knee-deep with literature.” But how can it be done without funds? These or¬ 
ganizations should be able to obtain something from their county; but there should be 
an appropriation made by the legislature and placed in the hands of the State Bureau, 
from which the local organizations could draw, with certain restrictions. Occasionally 
such an organization could hold an institute, at which time papers could be read upon 
the various topics of agriculture, fruit raising, dairying, etc. 

The benefits derived from this exchange of ideas, and the social privileges of such 
a meeting, go far to make people enthusiastic over their adopted home, and there 
wells up in the hearts of all who come under the influence of such a society, a desire to 
share the advantages with others in less favored parts of the country. 

The advertising of the lands of Virginia has been left almost entirely to the real 
estate dealer; but this is insufficient. Something else is needed. People want to 
hear from those who have tried it themselves. We could not well do without the 
real estate dealer, but we would supplement much of the work done by them with the 
work of these organizations. The land dealer may not care who comes here, or how 
much land he buys, or whether he likes it or not, and he may not care whether he keeps 
the place he buys, so a sale is made and he pockets the first payment as his commis¬ 
sion. Then very often a failure is made in the subsequent payments. The dealer 
sells him out and the farm comes into his hands for sale again. And it is plain to be 
seen what kind of an advertisement such a man will be when he returns to the place 
from whence he came. 

But the local Immigration Society, not having any moneyed interest at stake, 
which, by the way, is the “root of all evil,” will work for the best interests of the 
State. It will discuss the question of small farms versus large ones; will advocate 
good roads and cash payment for all lands, and will cry out against parties purchas¬ 
ing more land than they can pay for and thoroughly cultivate. By this means we 
will secure a class of people that will be contented and prosperous. 


What Central Organizations will be Most Effective and Feas¬ 
ible in Promoting Immigration to the State of Virginia ? 

By W. Seymour White, Fredericksburg, Va. 

Any organization, to succeed, must have behind it capital money; you can no 
more conduct any business enterprise, great or small, without money, than you can 
run a steam engine without the proper fuel to produce the steam ; therefore, to have 
an effective central organization for the promotion of immigration to Virginia, no 
matter what plan you adopt, you must have money. 

If this proposition be true, the first and most vital inquiry is, how to get the 
necessary means. -In this practical and skeptical age you will hardly persuade capi¬ 
tal to embark in any enterprise unless it can be shown that there is at least a reason¬ 
able chance that it will pay, that the principal invested in the enterprise will be 
repaid, and that it will draw interest. Therefore, in looking about for the necessary 
capital to be used to make any central organization for the promotion of immigration 
to Virginia feasible and effective, you must first ask, Who will derive the most profit 
from such an enterprise? Who will it best pay? Primarily, the State of Virginia. 
The capital of this State, or of her people, is her land. Three-fifths of this capital is 
non-interest bearing to the owner; that is, it produces nothing for him on its assessed 





66 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


value it does not pay him one-half per cent.; it brings him rather in debt. It is de¬ 
preciating in value, and making the citizen who owns it less valuable to the State. 
The problem in Virginia is to cultivate the idle and waste land, to make the idle 
capital an interest-bearing subject. In the satisfactory solution of this problem the 
State, as an organized corporate body, sovereign in character, is most interested. 
Tillers of the soil are to her revenue-producers; they are the best class of tax-payers, 
and they are the very best promoters of the general prosperity of the whole State. 
It is, therefore, more to the interest of the State of Virginia that we should bring into 
our borders a thrifty, hard-working population, who will take up and cultivate our 
15,000,000 of acres of uncultivated land, than it is to any other corporate body or in¬ 
dividual. Properly managed, the State of Virginia can derive both a direct benefit 
and a vast indirect benefit. Such being the case, the means for promoting immigra¬ 
tion to this State should be supplied by the State. Failing to convince those gentle¬ 
men whose superior wisdom has been found to qualify them to sit in the General 
Assembly of this so potent fact, the associated railways of the State should be the 
next source to which you might reasonably look for means. Railroads derive more 
direct benefits from a dense population than any other corporations; double the num¬ 
ber of people on the line of railway, and you double, or more than double, the num¬ 
ber of passengers to be carried. Double the products of the soil, and you more than 
double the freights to be carried, which must consequently vastly increase the profits 
of the railroads. Therefore, the railroads can, from a properly organized scheme for 
the promotion of immigration, derive both a direct and an indirect benefit. As a last 
resort, a private corporation or association of individuals might take the matter up. 
This would be the least desirable, as such an association would only derive a pecu¬ 
niary benefit, that would be measured by the difference between the receipts from the 
commissions on land sales and expenses. Having provided the funds, the next step 
is to induce people to come here. We have land to sell or rent; we need people to 
buy or lease. To get them to do either, we must satisfy them, first, that we have 
something that it is to their advantage to take, and secondly, that the representations 
we make are reliable and accurate. How shall we best do this? The wholesale mer¬ 
chant of the present day who finds himself with a stock of valuable goods on hand 
in which his capital is invested, and knows that he must sell them to get back his 
outlay and interest on the same, does not quietly sit down and wait for his customers 
to hunt up his place of business, inquire into his character, and examine the quality 
of his goods; if he did, he’d never sell them. But he first advertises very largely to 
the world what he has and who he is; then he engages the services of a number of 
shrewd, smart men, familiar with his business, with the character of his goods, and 
with as large a general acquaintance as possible, and fully supplying them with sam¬ 
ples of what he has to sell, sends them out to persuade people to buy. Just such a 
plan will prove the most feasible and practicable for bringing immigration to this 
State. Few, if any, of the thousands of desirable immigrants who are every year 
seeking desirable homes know or ever hear of Virginia. We should have a Bureau 
of Immigration, thoroughly organized and presided over by a first-class head. The 
first work of this Bureau should be to secure for its lists as large a number of acres of 
land for sale, or farms, as possible. In procuring these, there should be accurate in¬ 
formation gotten on the following points: Character of soil, climate; crops best 
suited for it; what is a fair average yield per acre: lowest cash price for which it can 
be bought; number and character of improvements, whether title is good, and what 
section of State it is in. All this should be carefully tabulated. There should accom¬ 
pany this accurate information of the various sections of Virginia, climate, soil, for 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


67 


\shat products suited, etc. Land-owners listing lands for sale with the Bureau 
should agree that the price should not be raised for three years, and should, in the 
event of any sale through the agency of the Bureau, agree to pay a commission of 5 
or 10 percent., as might be agreed on. These lists of property and descriptions of 
V irginia should be printed in book form of good type, and of a size to handle easily. 
There should then be made a number of very large general maps of the State, show¬ 
ing different sections, rivers, railroads, mountain ranges, and other general character¬ 
istics. Armed with these maps, and an abundant supply of such literature, the Bureau 
should send out agents to those centres of population from which it might be thought 
desirable to secure immigrants. Arrived on the spot, the agent should meet the people 
at their church or school-house or other place of public meeting, and speak to them 
of the State, its resources, advantages, and desirability as a place of residence; illus¬ 
trate his talk with the map, distribute his literature, and furnish all statistical or 
other information desired, endeavor to persuade the individual to come to Virginia, 
organize colonies or little groups to come to such sections of the State as they might 
desire to settle in, and if one on the spot desired to select a farm, procure him an 
option on it, and guarantee the absolute accuracy of all information furnished. 

Time prevents me from going into the many little details needed to make the plan 
a success* but enough has been outlined to show that it is both feasible and practica¬ 
ble, and it is only some such plan that will ever prove feasible, practicable, or suc¬ 
cessful. 

There will be some cost attending the organizing and operating of this plan, but 
it will not be so great by many thousands of dollars as many firms spend yearly 
in advertising. The cost would very nearly, if not quite, be covered by a small com¬ 
mission on all land sold, and, with proper management, the Bureau might be made 
self-supporting. Such a move is eminently practicable. We must be up and doing; 
‘ ‘ rusticus expectat dum dejiuat amnis but the wise man builds him a bridge and 
crosses. For twenty-five or more years we have sat idly and watched the streams of 
immigration flow by while we have talked and talked until our ears are weary of our 
resources and advantages. Our course has brought no immigrants. Let us now go 
to work and dig us a canal, through which we may turn this golden stream of immi¬ 
gration on to our waste and idle lands. 


What would be the Practical Advantages of Immigration 

to Virginia? 

By Colonel J. P. Fitzgerald, Farmville, Va. 

I have been requested to discuss on this occasion this question, What would be the 
Practical Advantages of Immigration to Virginia ? 

I wish to say in the outset, that if any one thinks that our desire or purpose is to 
turn to Virginia that indiscriminate tide of immigration from Europe which for many 
years has poured into the Western and Northwestern sections of the United States, 
without regard to the financial, moral, or educational condition of the individuals who 
are thus to come among us, he totally misunderstands the object and scope of this 
movement. If such was our desire or purpose, it could not be accomplished. 

The conditions then existing do not exist now; the inducements then offered are 
not here, and cannot, under any circumstances, be here held out. 

There the general government, or gigantic corporations, undei grants fiom the 




68 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


government, owned the land, almost entirely uninhabited, and to settle it up so that 
the remainder would be valuable was the object had in view, and these settlers were 
to be the people to form the State and give complexion to society. Here the land we 
wish to dispose of is owned by individuals; we have no public lands; the State is al¬ 
ready formed, and the laws of society fixed and determined. As I said in a letter sug¬ 
gesting the call of this Convention, addressed to the President of the Chamber of 
Commerce, of Kichmond, “we want people of our own race, of our own selection, 
from other countries and other States of the Union, who can by social and familiar in¬ 
tercourse in our homes, in our churches, on our court-greens, and in our public assem¬ 
blies, be moulded to think and act with us, and whose instincts and predilections will 
be similar to our own.” Let it then be distinctly understood that we have started 
this movement, and will prosecute it, for the purpose of inducing people to come to 
Virginia, not to settle government land, not to lay the foundations of society, or to 
disturb those already laid, but to buy lands we find ourselves unable to cultivate, to 
sha^e with us our citizenship, and the blessings of our civilization, and to become our 
neighbors and friends, and with us to shape the future of the Commonwealth by 
means best adapted to promote the happiness and prosperity of all her sons, both na¬ 
tive and adopted. 

The inducements which we can and will hold out to the immigrant seeking a 
home for himself and for his posterity will, I am sure, be such as to prove attractive 
to the thrifty, the frugal, and the law-abiding of every land, and uninviting to those 
otherwise inclined. 

It seems to me that among the first inquiries to be made by those whom we ask 
to come to dwell with us is this, How comes it that you now desire to sell your 
lands, and why is it that so much of it is uncultivated? To give an intelligible and 
satisfactory answer, requires a retrospective look at Virginia’s social and agricultural 
condition. 

Up to the close of the late war between the States, Virginia, certainly the eastern 
portion of it, was divided into plantations, each of itself a domain, in many cases con¬ 
taining thousands of acres, cultivated under the direction of the owner or of his 
agents by slaves, who had been inherited with the land, for whose support and wel¬ 
fare he was responsible, and the product of whose labor he used for the benefit of the 
whole. These slaves having each a monetary value, gave the owner credit, where¬ 
with he could procure supplies if a sufficiency was not produced by this labor, and the 
natural increase of such slaves, and their growth from youth to manhood, and conse¬ 
quent increase in value, constituted the main profit of the system of agriculture then 
in vogue, which profit appeared oftentimes on one side of the ledger, while on the 
other appeared the indebtedness incurred for thier support and the keeping up of the 
establishment, often far greater than the supposed profit. The value of the slaves, 
and not the number of acres owned, was then the criterion of Virginia’s wealth. 

If any one is desirous of understanding the internal workings of that system of 
agriculture, now numbered among the things that were, whose ending few of us de¬ 
plore, however much we may condemn the manner in which that end was accomplished, 
and which none of us wish to restore, and the restoration of w r hich we would resist more 
strenuously than we did its destruction; let him notread “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a ro¬ 
mance born in the fertile imagination of one who never participated therein, but 
“Memorials of a Southern Planter,” by Mrs. Smedes, who was reared amid the 
scenes she describes, and who gives a pen picture true to life. 

With the fall of the Southern Confederacy, and the emancipation of our slaves, 
that system of agriculture in Virginia passed away. Then the land-owner found him- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


69 


self possessed of an area often, as I have said, vast in extent, without labor to culti¬ 
vate it, or the means wherewith to procure that labor, and encumbered with a debt 
contracted on the faith of property which had been declared no longer to be the pro¬ 
perty, and which could never be subjected to its payment. His creditors at once real¬ 
ized that the security relied on when the debts were contracted was gone, and sought 
to obtain as security his debtor’s land, which had not been considered when the debt 
was made; and so when our courts were opened, the machinery of the law, provided 
for the subjection of land to the payment of debts, which theretofore had been rarely 
used, was rapidly put into operation. 

The first decade -was passed in thus adjusting liabilities, and under orders of 
court many of these domains passed to speculators or to creditors, who bought them 
for their debts against the owners. Land-owners who were so fortunate as not to be 
encumbered with debt, and such purchasers at judicial sales during this period, at¬ 
tempted to continue the 'planting system by hiring the former slaves, and to obtain 
the means for doing so mortgaged their lands. The transition of the laborer from 
the condition of enforced obedience to a voluntary performance of his contract, though 
that contract was for wages to himself, was so novel to him, and his investitur dur- 
ing this period with the rights of citizenship, rendered failure of this system inevita¬ 
ble, and it ended with disaster to well-nigh every one who attempted it, and resulted 
in the lands again changing hands, or in the enforced abandonment of much that was 
arable and productive. 

The second decade opened with and was passed in the experiment of turning the 
former slave into a tenant, for rent, payable either in a portion of his labor or in 
money, and in many instances the owner turned over much of his land to such tenants 
with the hope of realizing therefrom a support for himself and family, aided by what 
he could make on a portion retained for cultivation by himself. 

The same causes which militated against the success of the system of the former 
decade, to which were added inducements, which they could not resist, offered to the 
tenants to leave their homes and go as laborers on the railroads and other public 
works, to the building of which a great impetus was about that time imparted, and 
the exodus of their children to seek employment as servants in the towns and cities, 
rendered this second attempt to have our lands cultivated by our former slaves abor¬ 
tive, and the second decade closed disastrously to the land-owner, and again he was 
compelled to contract the area of cultivation. 

The third decade, that which is now drawing to its close, witnessed the attempt 
of our land-owners to make independent farmers of the negroes by selling to them 
portions of their lands, hoping thereby to see the agricultural system pass from that 
of planting to that of farming. The experiment, I think, has satisfied those who tried 
it that farming in Virginia cannot be successfully carried on, the negro being the 
farmer, and, therefore, as this decade draws to an end we find a still larger quantity 
of arable land uncultivated. 

Lest I should be misunderstood, let me say, that in each of the periods into 
which I have divided the thirty years which have elapsed since the war, many of 
our own people, and in some sections of the State, immigrants from other States, 
have as farmers , as distinguished from planters, successfully engaged in agricultural 
pursuits, but not in sufficient numbers to utilize the lands cultivated under the former 
or ante-bellum system, and we have heard during this Convention from those who 
have preceded me something of the results, especially in the Tidewater section, and 
this movement has been inaugurated to extend that system to other sections, and, if 
possible, over the entire State. 


70 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


If, then, we can, by dividing our tracts of land into farms of from 100 to 500 acres, 
and settle upon each farm a man who will himself, with his sons, be a tiller of the 
soil, utilizing, as occasion may require, the abundant negro labor waiting at his door 
to be thus employed, the practical advantages which will result can be easily enumer¬ 
ated : 

1. To us, the present owners of these uncultivated lands. By their sale we 
will realize on our surplus lands what is now, and has been for thirty years, dead capi¬ 
tal. The money thus realized—which will be less than the actual value of the lands, 
for we must sell at such prices—we can use in restoring our homesteads to something 
like their former conditions, and in bringing up to the highest state of fertility the 
lands retained as farms for ourselves. 

2. To the communities in which such sales may be made. The marked trend of 
our rural population, for years past, to the towns and cities has, in a large degree, re¬ 
sulted from the want of social advantages in the country; and our young men, as they 
grew up, have sought employment in towns and cities, because of social advantages 
there afforded them, not attainable in the country where they were reared. If we 
can accomplish the object that we have in view, much of this will cease, and they will 
prefer home life in the country, -with such social advantages as a well-settled country 
community affords, to that of the crowded city, and they will become farmers, instead 
of employees of concentrated capital. 

3. To the negroes in our midst. This class of our population are fast realizing 
that they are dependent for prosperity upon the white people amongst whom they 
live; that their place is as laborers for, and helps to, the whites; and they are con¬ 
tent to perform that labor and afford that help for wages adequate to the support of 
themselves and their families; and I do not think it can be successfully denied that 
the negro, working under the direction of, and paid by the white man, is the best 
laborer, the least restive, and the easiest to be controlled in this country. If we can 
settle up the uncultivated lands of Virginia with immigrants such as I have said it is 
our desire and purpose to introduce, remunerative labor will be given to him, and such 
labor as he is best fitted for, and to which, by nature and by education, he is best 
adapted. 

4. To the State as a whole. It will not and cannot be denied that agriculture is 
the foundation upon which rests the prosperity of the State, and that manufactures 
and commerce follow in its wake. If the agricultural interest of the State can be re¬ 
vived along the lines indicated, and our lands cultivated to the highest point of their 
capacity by farmers, as producers of the daily supplies wherewith to feed the teem¬ 
ing inhabitants of the cities on our seaboard and elsewhere, connected with us by 
rapid and cheap means of transportation, our lands will come to have a market value, 
a value which will annually appreciate, instead of depreciate, as has heretofore been 
the case, and will become a means of credit to the owner. This being accomplished, 
and land in Virginia having come to be sought after because of its remunerative pro¬ 
ductiveness to its cultivator, and because of other reasons, of which we have heard 
to-day from those who have preceded me, then, along those smaller rivers and 
creeks which are the tributaries of the rivers which flow from west to east through 
the State, from the mountains to the sea, those numerous waterfalls which now run 
to waste, and which were once utilized to grind the flour and meal to feed our popula¬ 
tion under the old regime , will be again utilized, will become each a nucleus around 
which will spring up a manufacturing village to utilize the growth of our forests and 
the minerals lying undeveloped in the bowels of the earth; and then from our trunk¬ 
line railroads which run westward from our cities on the coast, branches will spread 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


71 


out to carry the products of these mills and factories into the marts of the world ; 
and thus, in time, our cities will rival those of other sections, our inland towns will 
glow, and, where now nature’s bounties are undeveloped, a happy and contented 
people will gather for their wants, and use for their comfort those gifts which a be¬ 
neficent Providence has so lavishly provided for man in the Commonwealth of Vir¬ 
ginia. 

V hat I have said has been, necessarily, suggestive rather than comprehensive or 
detailed. It may be that I look at the future of Virginia more hopefully than others 
do, and that I have pictured possibilities which others do not see. If I do, it is be¬ 
cause I am one of those who, cherishing the memories of the past as fondly as any 
one can, yet have determined that, “forgetting the things which are behind, and 
pressing forward to the mark of the prize of our high calling” as a Virginian and as 
an American citizen, I will bend my energies to procure the cooperation of my coun¬ 
trymen in making this old Commonwealth what she is entitled to be by right of her 
past history, by right of her geographical position, by right of her climate, by right 
of the natural fertility of her soil, by right of the variety of her products and her re¬ 
sources, and, above all, by right of the character of her people, the brightest star in 
the galaxy of American Commonwealths. 


The Steps Most Essential to Secure Immigration; How the 
State and County Authorities can Best Co-operate to 
Promote It; and What, if any, Additional Legislation 
is Desirable. 

By J. F. Jackson, Editor of the Southern Planter. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: As most of you are aware, I am an English¬ 
man ; but an absence of nearly ten years from my native country, and a residence of 
that time in this State, qualifies me, I think, in venturing to speak on this subject 
from two points of view: First , as a resident and a farmer here; and second, from the 
point of view of an outsider. On the first point I propose to say little, not because I 
could not do so in language as eloquent of the praises of the resources of the State, 
and its fitness as a place of immigration for those desiring to change their homes, as 
that of any of the other speakers who have preceded me, for with them I entirely 
agree, but because this part of the subject has already been so fully spoken upon, and 
needs no further amplification. We have here all the resources of a country fitted to 
be the happy and prosperous home of any people. Our climate is second to none. 
Our geographical situation is the best of any State in the Union. We are neither so 
far south as to be enervated by excessive heat, nor so far north as to be chilled for 
more than half the year by the icy blasts of the arctic zone. Our proximity to the 
ocean gives us an equable climate and the incalculable advantages of cheap water- 
carriage for our products, whilst the mountains on our west shield us from the bliz¬ 
zards and tornadoes of the prairie lands, which rarely, if ever, find their way into the 
State. Our lands are naturally fertile, and, where they have been rendered barren by 
long and unscientific culture, are easily and cheaply restored to fertility again. With 
all these advantages, how is it that we do not get immigrants to fill up our waste 
lands? This brings me to the second point in my address. It is said, and, I believe, 
truly, that “the outsider sees more of the game than the players,” and that it is al¬ 
ways good to consider a question from the standpoint of an outsider. 



72 


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“ Oh ! wad some power the giftie gie us 

To see ourselves as ithers see us ! 

It wad frae inoriy a blunder free us, 

Aud foolish notion.” 

There are, in my opinion as an outsider, four reasons why we do not get immi¬ 
grants. I will place first two reasons which, to many of you, I know, will be dis¬ 
tasteful; but I have now, I think, lived long enough among you to be able to tell you 
even distasteful things without my motives being misconstrued. He is not always 
the best friend who prophesies only “smooth things.” If there be unpleasant ones, 
they should be pointed out in order that they may be overcome. There is, undoubt¬ 
edly, a feeling in England and in Europe generally, and, I believe, also, to some ex¬ 
tent, in the Northern and the New England States, that life is not secure here in the 
South. No doubt this feeling has been, and is largely contributed to by the reports 
of lynchings, which, unfortunately, happen in the South much too frequently, and are 
too often, I regret to say, not sufficiently discountenanced by public opinion. It is 
true that here in Virginia we have not had so many of these terrible outrages against 
justice as in some other Southern States, and that such cases as have happened have 
been, I believe, solely confined to punishment for outrages upon females; yet the 
mere fact of the existence of this wild justice of revenge, for whatever cause, operates, 
especially in old countries like England, largely to prevent people coming among us, 
as such acts are absolutely unknown there. Crime is there always punished by the 
law and its officers, and not in defiance of it or of them. A country where such acts 
are possible is looked upon as only partially civilized, and hence is shunned. Let us, 
therefore, see to it that these outrages against justice cease, and that every offender 
against the law is punished swiftly and surely, in accordance with the terms of the 
law. A second reason why people with capital do not come amongst us and develop 
our resources is, that there is a feeling, both in the North and in England, that capi¬ 
tal is not safe here. It has been said that “nothing is so timid as one dollar , except 
two dollars ,” and this is true. Unfortunately, the South has not yet realized this, and 
there is more or less agitation going on all the time here in favor of tampering with 
the sound currency of the country, and for imposing restrictions on capitalistic enter¬ 
prise, such as railroad commissions and special taxation. All these have their effects 
in preventing the introduction of capital to develop our resources. A third reason 
why people do not come to settle amongst us is the fact, so patent to any one travell¬ 
ing through the South, that we do not ourselves endeavor to make the best of our 
great opportunities, and that much, very much, of our land is left waste, and is going 
back to broomsedge and pines. A country which expects to secure new settlers must 
first show that its own people have confidence in its resources and capabilities, and, 
so far as lies in their power, develop them. With few exceptions, this is not the case 
here. Our land-owners and farmers are nearly all more anxious to sell their lands 
than to improve them and to show of what they are capable. A stranger is not en¬ 
couraged to invest in a country where everybody wants to sell, and no native-born 
citizen wishes to buy. His faith in the possibilities of such a country is shaken, and 
he naturally asks why he should buy what the native-born citizen values so little. 
This condition of things is one which no legislation can correct. It rests with the 
people themselves, by individual effort, to correct it. “ God helps those who help 
themselves.” If our land-owners would devote their energies to showing what our 
lands are capable of producing, even if the experiment were confined to only a few 
acres on each farm, and would keep their own sons upon their farms, developing and 
improving them, instead of sending them away to the West to develop and improve 
lands naturally much less capable of profitable cultivation, they would do more to in- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


73 


duce people to come amongst us than can probably be accomplished by any legisla¬ 
tion. A fourth reason why people do not come and settle here is, that hitherto we 
have done little or nothing to let the outside world know what are our capabilities. 
We have contented ourselves with telling each other of the good things we possess, 
and carefully concealing the information from those who could help us if they only 
knew of our condition. As as example of this, just look at our legislation with re¬ 
ference to the State Bureau of Immigration in connection with the Department of 
Agriculture. Though created by statute, no appropriation whatever is made to en¬ 
able it to do anything. The Department of Agriculture is authorized to issue a hand¬ 
book of the State giving information as to its productions and capabilities; but the 
statute authorizing this does not permit of its being sent out of the State. It is to be 
distributed by the Department within the State , where the information it contains is 
already known; and the only way in which it can reach those outside who want to 
know is by the individual effort of the citizens of the State who mail it at their own 
cost. This state of facts I brought before the committee of the Legislature four years 
ago, and was informed by the chairman that every one in England knew all about 
\ irginia. I told him that when I contemplated coming here I could learn nothing 
about Virginia in any part of England, and that even in New York I could learn no¬ 
thing. I have letters from people in England almost every week making inquiry 
about the State. I hold one in my hand, received a few days ago. All these letters 
make the same remark: “lean learn nothing about Virginia in England: even the 
Consuls and V ice-Consuls of the United States in this country can give no informa¬ 
tion.” About all the Western and Northwestern States information can be had at 
every depot in England, and live, active agents, representing those States, are to be 
found all over the country. How can we expect people to come to us when we never 
make our advantages known? 

And now, having stated some of the reasons—probably the principal ones—why 
people do not come to Virginia, I am asked to suggest the legislation needed to in¬ 
duce them to do so. As to the three* first reasons which I have set out as preventing 
immigration, I can suggest no legislation to correct them. Public opinion must be 
educated to deal with them, and to appreciate their force as deterrent factors in the 
problem. Each individual citizen must range himself on the side of law and order, 
and against legislation calculated to arouse suspicion in the minds of capitalists as to 
the perfect safety of life and capital here. Each citizen must exhibit that superb 
confidence in the resources of his own State which will lead him to develop those re¬ 
sources as far as possible with his limited means, and will make him determined not to 
part with one acre more of his land than his own resources will permit him to 
develop. As to the fourth reason, I have stated that I think there is much need of 
legislation to correct this. The State ought to provide a Bureau of Statistics and of 
Immigration in fact, and not in name only, and ought to make a substantial appro¬ 
priation to support it. This should be placed in charge of an officer of the State gov¬ 
ernment, who should be of high character and beyond all reproach as to favoritism 
for any section of the State. It should be a part of his duty to gather and dissemi¬ 
nate information touching all the points upon which immigrants can desire know¬ 
ledge; and he should stand ready at all times to advise all new-comers as to the 
different sections of the State, and as to the actual value of lands in those sections. 
He should also have power to create local agencies in the several counties, and to 
appoint local agents of the highest character, to whom to refer inquirers, the State 
thereby assuming the responsibility of protecting new-comers from fraud and imposi¬ 
tion. It would also be well that he should have power to appoint agents in England 


74 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


and in Northern Europe, from whom all needed information could be had, and who 
should be able to book suitable emigrants, and to send them with tickets direct into 
the State, so that they could not be intercepted at New York or other ports of land¬ 
ing and be diverted elsewhere. If once an emigrant is booked in his own country to 
Virginia, and pays his fare to this State, he will surely come here; but, if not, he is 
quite as likely to be caught at the port of landing by the agents for other States, and 
to be sent elsewhere. With such a state organization as this, and with the coopera¬ 
tion of our citizens, in correcting the other deterrent causes that I have mentioned, 
and acting in cooperation with an immigration association of our citizens voluntarily 
banded together to develop our resources by aiding in every way possible the settling 
up of our waste lands, I see no reason why we should not yet see Virginia once again 
occupying the position of the first of the States. 

At the conclusion of Mr. J. F. Jackson’s address in the afternoon, the 
Convention took a recess until 8 o’clock p. m. 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONTENTION. 


75 


EVENING SESSION. 


In the absence of President Koiner, the Convention was called to order 
at 8: 10 p. m., by Col. J. P. Fitzgerald, second Vice-President. 

The Committee appointed on Resolutions, consisting of Thomas White- 
head, Judge Charles Grattan, A. Jeffers, Dr. J. S. Apperson, S. Welford 
Corbin, R. M. Mallory, J. B. Baylor, J. P. Fitzgerald, W. B. All wood, Park 
L. Poindexter, made the following report upon resolutions which had been 
referred to it during the previous sessions of the Convention: 

“To the Immigration Convention : 

“The Committee on Resolutions beg leave to make the following report. 
They recommend the adoption of the following resolutions marked from 1 to 
8 inclusive. 

“Resolutions marked A and B were not concurred in, and are herewith 
returned to the convention. 

“ Respectfully submitted, 

“Thomas Whitehead, Chairman. 

“ 1st. Resolved , That this Convention recommend to the people of Vir¬ 
ginia who have lands for sale, that they organize in their respective counties 
Immigration Societies, under the Act of the Legislature of Virginia, to be 
found in the Acts of 1893-’94, p. 723. 

“ 2d. Resolved , That this Convention appoint a committee of five to pre¬ 
pare constitution and by-laws for such societies, and that the State Board of 
Agriculture be requested, when such committee shall have formulated such 
constitution and by-laws, to have the same printed, and to furnish a copy 
thereof to any County Emigration Society organized thereunder, applying 
therefor to the Commissioner of Agriculture. 

“ 3d. Resolved , That it is the sense of this Convention that there should 
be a permanent Bureau of Immigration and Statistics for the State of Vir¬ 
ginia, and that the time is now ripe for such an organization. 

“ 4th. Resolved, That this Convention request and urge the next Legis¬ 
lature of Virginia to establish, by proper legislation, such Bureau, and make 
a sufficient appropriation to support, maintain, and make effective the said 
Bureau. 




76 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


“ 5th. Resolved , That each and every member of this Convention is earn- 
estly urged to impress upon his member of the Legislature the importance 
of this movement. 

“6th. Resolved , That the farmers and land-owners of Virginia are also 
urged to insist to their members of the Legislature upon the importance of 
such a Bureau of Immigration and Statistics, and to use all proper means to 
induce the Legislature to establish such Bureau 

“ 7th. Resolved\ That this Convention will be glad if any arrangement 
can be made whereby the resources of Virginia, of each and every sort in 
kind, as well as all statistics, can be exhibited under the auspices of the 
Southern Exchange Association of New York; and that a committee of three 
be appointed to ascertain if such an arrangement can be made, and if so, to 
cause such exhibit to be made. 

“8th. Resolved , The Committee on Kesolutions recommends the organi¬ 
zation of a permanent association, to be called the Immigration Association 
of Virginia, as a representative body, to be composed of delegates from the 
County Immigration Societies, and such other persons as may be duly ap¬ 
pointed by the Boards of Supervisors of the several counties, Common Coun¬ 
cils of the cities and towns; and that a committee be appointed to draw up 
suitable by-laws for the same.” 

Col. Thomas Whitehead, Commissioner of Agriculture, then spoke as 
follows: 

I think it well, from the fact that I have been in touch with this matter for seven 
years, to make a short statement, giving the Convention some idea of why these reso¬ 
lutions in the shape they are presented to the Convention have been adopted by the 
committee. In Virginia, since the war, the subject of immigration has come up a 
number of times, and at one time it was a very prominent question—-from 1869 to 
1874—and the legislature passed one or two Immigration Acts, similar to the one re¬ 
commended here. An effort was made, and it succeeded, to a certain extent, in bring¬ 
ing emigrants into the State, and an appropriation was made of $5,000 per year for 
that purpose; one year it was increased to $10,000. During the period when the debt 
question was most oppressing the people of Virginia, and disturbing them a good deal, 
the legislature repealed that Act, and turned back into the treasury of the State about 
$5,000 that was in the immigration treasury, and the next year passed an act provid¬ 
ing for the establishment of an Immigration Bureau, but without any money, which 
was to be supported by voluntary contributions from railroad and other corporations, 
and private individuals. The members were composed of all who contributed $100, 
and the Commissioner of Agriculture was ex-officio chairman of the board, with the 
Governor as president. That scheme worked for one year, and then nothing further 
was done. 

In 1888, when I became Commissioner of Agriculture, this Bureau was still in 
existence, but had no money or power to do anything, and the subject had been 
dropped for a number of years. I think it was in 1879 that this Bureau ceased to act, 
and nothing has been done since. In January, 1888, a terrible blizzard, the most ter- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


77 


rible one that ever struck the United States, swept over the Northwest, resulted in the 
killing of about 1200 people (worse than a battle), and how many were wounded no 
man knows; but it produced consternation all over that section, and hundreds of let¬ 
ters came pouring into this and other Southern States from parties living in that 
region, wdio wished to get away and settle in some section of the country less likely 
to be visited by such disturbances. These inquiries came principally to Virginia. 
There was no Board of Agriculture then, only a Commissioner, who was, as I say, ex- 
ojjicto chairman of the dead Immigration Bureau, without any funds. I gathered up . 
an immense package of these letters that had been received and showed them to Gov¬ 
ernor Lee. There had been no provision made for carrying on a correspondence, the 
payment of postage, or anything of that sort. The Governor advised me to answer all 
the letters and give the best information in my possession, which was done by the dis¬ 
tribution of some old literature, and he also advised me to report the matter to the leg¬ 
islature. I did report it to the legislature, and the legislature passed an Act providing 
for a board, and appropriating $10,000 for it. The bill was passed by the house and 
went to the Senate. The Senate then had before it the present agricultural bill, which 
made the State Board of Agriculture, and put it in working shape, and they passed by 
the bill, refusing to create the Bureau of Immigration, but attaching it to the agricul¬ 
tural bill, which had an appropriation of $10,000. The Board of Agriculture took it 
up and organized a scheme and appropriated money to carry it out, and appointed 
Judge Grattan as,a commissioner, under the direction of the Commissioner of Agri¬ 
culture and the Board, to go out to the Northwest and hold meetings in the different 
places, and see and talk to these people. Judge Grattan went out there and received 
a cordial reception; inquiries kept coming in, and there were demands for a hand¬ 
book of some sort giving information as to the lands in Virginia. The Commissioner 
of Agriculture had issued a number of such books, giving all sorts of statistical infor¬ 
mation, and incorporating in them letters from Northern and Western men who were 
located here and were well pleased with their land purchases and surroundings, which 
books were circulated throughout the Northwest, and the result was that in a very 
little while a great many families moved to this State from that section of the country. 

Later on there was some discussion about the matter in the legislature, and it was 
investigated and ascertained that the Board did not have any authority to act, that, in 
fact, there was no Bureau of Immigration; that the Code had repealed the previous 
Act, and that the Board was then acting without any authority. So there was noth¬ 
ing further done, and nothing could be done, except under the provision of the old Act 
the Commissioner of Agriculture was directed and required to publish a hand-book, 
but there was no provision made, except by implication, for the circulation of it, and 
so the matter dropped there. 

The Board directed me to ascertain, as near as possible, whether this immigra¬ 
tion movement on the part of the Board of Agriculture had done any good—if any 
emigrants had been brought here. Statistics were collected by sending inquiries to the 
clerk of every county court in the State to find out what new families had settled in 
their respective counties during the three years these efforts had been made; how 
many of them had bought lands, etc., etc. These returns showed that about 5,300 
new people had come into the counties, and that 0 1 S ot them had bought lands and 
were living on them as the result of the three years’ work on the part of the Board of 
Agriculture when it had hold of this subject of immigration. It had ceased then, be¬ 
cause it had no power to do anything except to get out a hand-book. 

When the World’s Fair was held in Chicago last year, the Attorney-General of 
our State was consulted with the view of ascertaining if the Board of Agriculture had 



78 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


any power to take part out there under the head of immigration by putting this hand¬ 
book in the hands of people who might be visiting the Fair and should make inqui¬ 
ries regarding Virginia and its resources. It had been the habit of the Board to an¬ 
swer all letters of inquiry that came to it, although the postage for this purpose was 
not provided for. The Attorney-General gave it as his opinion, that as the object of 
this hand-book which the Commissioner of Agriculture was instructed to have pub¬ 
lished was to give information to people who knew nothing about Virginia, it impliedly 
carried with it the right to circulate the book, and that in his opinion the Board had 
the right to send a man to Chicago with these books to put them in the hands of the 
proper people making inquiries. Ten thousand of the books were issued at first, and 
instructions were given that they be placed only in the hands of those parties who 
were seeking for information about Virginia. This book had a map of the State, 
brought up to the latest date, contained all the statistical information that might be 
desired, and touched on the advantages of the State in every particular. That book 
was placed in the hands of a large number of people, and my office will show hundreds 
of letters that have been received from parties who have gotten these books making 
inquiries as to lands, etc.; and they continue to come. I met a man yesterday at the 
Fair; he was from Dakota. He told me he had written to me for one of these books; 
that I had sent it to him, and that he had come on here to look around for a place to 
locate. They are coming in that way all the time. I have made these remarks to 
show the gentlemen that all of the facts about this work have not been known by 
the public generally. It has been very difficult to inform our own people exactly what 
has been done; but we have done everything we could with the resources at our com¬ 
mand. Mr. Jackson has said here to-day that the people of England and the conti¬ 
nent are ignorant as to Virginia and its advantages. My reply to that is, that the 
Glasgow Herald , the most important paper in the north of Great Britain, had a six or 
eight inch notice of this hand-book I have referred to, and complimented it as a very 
useful publication, showing an effort on the part of Virginia to truthfully and faith¬ 
fully set out the capacities and resources of the State. 

Now the real thing is to get this immigration movement started to work. As to 
finding people outside of the State who want to come here, I can find thousands of 
them; there are many who have come, and many more want to come. Men come into 
my office almost every day, and letters are received daily making inquiries, and a 
great deal of the. interest manifested is due first to Judge Grattan’s trip to the north¬ 
western country; and secondly to Mr. Lyman’s distribution of these books in Chicago 
with the explanations he made. There will be no difficulty in getting people to come 
here provided suitable rates of transportation can be secured; that is where the trou¬ 
ble comes in. A gentleman from Nebraska sent me a local paper containing an adver¬ 
tisement of cheap railroad rates to points further west, and to Manitoba, one cent per 
mile, while that very gentleman when he came here from Nebraska had to pay tho 
highest kind of a rate for himself and his family. He told me he could have moved 
clear up to Alaska for less than it took to move him to Virginia. I went to see the 
railroad authorities about it. They said, we don’t make the rates this way, we make 
them from here to the West: the western roads make the rates coming east. I can 
send you dozen of letters from men saying that the difficulty in getting to Virginia is 
the cost of getting here. The excursions do well in bringing people here to look 
around, but in those western papers there are advertisements of cheap rates for parties 
desiring to move to northwestern and western points, rates which are far less than can 
be secured by any one desiring to come east, and in order to induce people to settle 
here in Virginia, we will have to arrange for them to be brought here over the rail- 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 79 

loads at a reasonable rate of transportation, not only for themselves, but for their 
household goods. 

At this point the Secretary, by request, read again the report of the 
Committee on Resolutions. 

Upon motion of Mr. Wood, the resolutions in the report were then taken 
up seriatim. 

The first resolution was discussed at considerable length, and met with 
some opposition, but was finally adopted. 

All the other resolutions were adopted without opposition until the sev¬ 
enth resolution was reached, which was fully discussed and some changes 
proposed in its form; but it was finally adopted in the shape reported by 
the committee. 

The eighth resolution was then adopted, after which, upon motion of 
Maj. R. V. Gaines, the report of the Committee on Resolutions was adopted 
as a whole. 

A resolution having been submitted by Mr. Walter Sharp, of Norfolk, 
relating to the Nicaragua Canal, w r as now brought to the aitention of the 
Convention by the Chair, but this resolution, though favored by some mem¬ 
bers of the Convention, was decided to be not germain to the business of 
the Convention, and was, therefore, upon motion, laid upon the table. 

The Chair then called the attention of the Convention to the fact that the 
report of the Committee on Resolutions called for the appointment of two 
committees: first, a committee of five to draft constitution and by-laws for 
the County Immigration Societies; and second, a committee to draw up 
suitable laws for the organization of a permanent association; and expressed 
the desire that the Convention should indicate who should compose those 
committees. 

Col. Whitehead said that he did not wish to interfere with the preroga¬ 
tive of the Chair, but wanted to move that the Convention select the chair¬ 
man of the first committee. He further said: “ I know personally that Col. 
Fitzgerald has been working on this question and collecting statistics for 
several years, and is thoroughly informed and conversant, I think, with what 
ought to be the workings of a county committee, looking to the interests of 
the people who own the land. I therefore desire to offer a motion that this 
Convention appoint Col. Fitzgerald as chairman of the committee to draft 
constitution and by-laws for County Immigration Societies.” Col. Whitehead 
then put the question, and Col. Fitzgerald was unanimously elected chair¬ 
man of the committee, with authority to appoint the other members of his 
committee. 

Mr. Catlin, of Richmond, in reference to the Bureau of Immigration and 
Statistics for the State of Virginia, strongly emphasized the importance of 


80 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


placing this Bureau upon a business footing, as far removed from the influ¬ 
ence of politics as possible. He illustrated the advantages of doing this by 
reference to the police and fire departments of the City of Richmond, which 
are controlled by commissioners, who are business men, and not politicians. 
He further suggested that with the view of learning by the experience of 
other States and sections of the country who had been dealing with the 
question of immigration for years, that it would be w T ell to offer a prize of 
$300 f >r the best paper on the subject of Immigration, and very liberally 
offered to guarantee one-third of the amount if the Convention saw fit to 
pass such a resolution. Capt. Baylor offered to <iive $25 towards the same 
object. 

Prof. Allwood, Mr. Wallerstein, Dr. Apperson, and Maj. Gaines urged 
the importance of immediate organization. Mr. Wallerstein said: “I be¬ 
lieve that if we adjourn here to night without making some definite arrange¬ 
ment we will be making a mistake. Why not do this: Have one delegate 
from each Congressional district in the State, and in addition have five mem¬ 
bers of the Executive Committee in the city of Richmond; that will make 
fifteen members, requiring as a quorum eight. To get together and meet 
we would always have these five members in Richmond, and there are three 
Congressional districts near enough to us for the members to get here with¬ 
out expense. I believe there are five men in this city who feel this matter 
deeply, and in order to push it ahead we have got to start it right here. 
There are two rooms in this building which could be used by such an organ¬ 
ization, and I am prepare! to offer one of them right now, free of cost; it 
belongs to an association of which I am a member, and will not cost the 
organization a cent. The moment the Committee on Constitution and By- 
Laws have completed their report, let them meet with the Executive Com¬ 
mittee of fifteen; you will always have five members in Richmond to attend 
the meetings, and three more can be gotten close by, which will insure a 
quorum.” 

Dr. Apperson approved of this suggestion. 

Col. Whitehead also approved of the suggestion, with the idea that the 
temporary officers elected would hold the organization until the next meet¬ 
ing of the Convention. 

Prof. Allwood explained his advocacy of organization by saying that it 
would be difficult and costly to get together as able and competent a body 
as the one then present, and a temporary organization arranged now w r ould 
be all the while in working order. 

Maj. Gaines thought there could be no doubt as to the competency of 
this body to take the action indicated, and moved that it proceed to elect a 
temporary President and a Secretary and Treasurer, and an Executive Com¬ 
mittee of five resident in Richmond. 


STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 81 

This proposition was modified, upon motion of Mr. Guthrie, as to the 
Executive Committee, which was enlarged to fifteen, composed of one repre¬ 
sentative from each of the ten Congressional districts of the Stale and five 
representatives from Richmond, with the provision that five members should 
constitute a quorum. 

Mr. Joseph Wallerstein was then nominated for President by Mr. Corbin. 

Mr. Wallerstein thanked Mr. Corbin for the nomination, but suggested 
that it would be better if some farmer were put at the head of the organi¬ 
zation. 

Mr. Corbin, however, said as a farmer, with an acquaintance of a good 
many years with Mr. Wallerstein, this is the result of my intelligent consid¬ 
eration of the matter. He is intimately connected with a successful immi¬ 
gration society, the outline of whose work has been very graphically por¬ 
trayed here to-night. He has liberally offered us a room for our head¬ 
quarters, and I don’t know a more public-spirited citizen than Mr. Waller¬ 
stein, or than the citizens he represents in the city of Richmond, and I hope 
it will be the pleasure of this Convention to elect him. 

Mr. Corbin’s motion was put, and Mr. Wallerstein was unanimously 
elected President. 

Col. J. P. Fitzgerald was elected Vice-President of the Association, and 
Mr. R. A. Dunlop, Secretary and Treasurer. 

The following gentlemen were then placed in nomination and duly elected 
members of the Executive Committee: J. F. Jackson, E. A. Catlin, J. H. 
Barton, R. B. Chaffin, and William H. Zimmerman, of Richmond; First 
District, B. B. Brockenbrough, of Essex; Second District, A. Jeffers, of Nor¬ 
folk ; Third District, T. C. Commins, of King William; Fourth District, Dr. 
R. S. Powell, of Brunswick; Fifth District, William D. Saunders, of Frank¬ 
lin ; Sixth District, James L. Guthrie, of Halifax; Seventh District, John C. 
Utz, of Madison; Eighth District, O. E. Hines, of Fairfax; Ninth District, 
Colonel R. P. Carson, of Washington; Tenth District, A. T. Barclay, of 
Rockbridge. 

Mr. Wallerstein offered a resolution of inquiry addressed to the Com¬ 
missioner of Railroads as to the rates on farm products over the various 
railroads of the State, which was amended by Prof Allwood so as to include 
in the inquiry the rates on immigrants’ movables, and was further modified 
at the suggestion of Maj. Gaines so as to ascertain whether any rates had 
been raised, and if so, to what extent, this being important in view of the 
fact that agricultural products have been going down. 

The resolution as amended was adopted, and reads as follows. 

“ Resolved , That in the interest of agricultural development in Virginia 
and immigration of desirable settlers to the farming lands of the State, it is 
most essential that rates of transportation in effect by the railroads of the 
6 


82 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATE IMMIGRATION CONTENTION. 


State on Virginia farm products and on emigrants’ movables should be such 
as not to discriminate in any way against agricultural production in the 
State or an immigration movement to the State” 

That with the view of ascertaining the present situation with reference 
to these rates, the Commissioner of Railroads for the State of Virginia be 
asked to report to this Association— 

1st. If any recent advance (that is, in the last two years) has been made 
in the rates applying to Virginia agricultural products, and if so, to state the 
railroads upon which such advances have occurred, and the extent of such 
advances. 

2d. To institute such comparison between the rates in effect on Virginia 
agricultural products and the rates on like agricultural products brought 
into the State from points beyond the borders of the State, as will show 
whether or not these rates are reasonable and non-discriminating with refer- 
ence to Virginia agricultural products. 

3rd. To ascertain the rates applied by the transportation companies of 
the State to such articles as are embraced under the classification of “ emi¬ 
grants’ movables ” coming from the States north and west of Virginia, and 
compare the same with rates on “ emigrants’ movables ” west bound from 
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and east Mississippi River crossings from St. 
Paul to Memphis inclusive. 

i 

Mr. Gatlin then said: Mr. President, I am reminded of a building re¬ 
cently coustructed in Richmond, where a large amount of steam was to be 
used, but the architect overlooked providing for a room for the boiler. We 
have constructed here a huge piece of machinery, but have made no arrange¬ 
ments for lubricating it. Mr. Dunlop has been elected Secretary and Treas¬ 
urer of this organization, and if it is worth anything at all it is going to take 
a good deal of his time. In fact, I am quite certain he will not have the 
time to perform the work himself, but he may be able to employ some one 
to do it for him under his supervision. The amount for postage and other 
incidental expenses will be very large. What are you going to do about pay¬ 
ing his expenses? Not one word has been said about raising a dollar for 
this purpose. Unfortunately, in everything with which I am connected I 
occupy the position of Treasurer, and I know that it requires money to do 
anything. You have got to raise money here to night, or we had better not 
have come here at all; so what are you going to do about it ? Let every 
gentleman here promise five dollars for his county. We must have a fund to 
start with. 

In response to this appeal a number of counties and organizations pledged 
the amount suggested. 

On motion, the Convention, at 11:10 o’clock p. m., adjourned sine die. 


OFFICERS OF THE CONVENTION. 


Temporary Chairman. 
President , 

Vice-Presidents , 


Secretaries , 


H. W. Wood. 

Absalom Koiner. 
r R. P. Carson. 

? J. P. Fitzgerald. 

( Isaac Diggs. 

^ R. A. Dunlop and represent 
( tives of the Press. 


p 



Albemarle. . 

Amelia, 

Augusta, 

Appomattox, 

Brunswick, 

ei 

Buckingham, 

Caroline, 


Charles City, 
Cumberland, 
Dinwiddie, 

CC 

Elizabeth City. 

£C 

Essex, 

Floyd, 
Fluvanna, . 
Goochland, 
Halifax, 
Hanover, . 


LIST OF DELEGATES. 

. Capt. C. E. Vawter. 

. R. E. Bridgeforth. 
Judge Charles Gratton. 
W. H. Liggon. 

. J. W. Bailey. 

. . . Dr. R. S. Powell. 

. E. W. Hubbard. 

J. B. Baylor. 

. H. H. George. 

W. L. Cobb. 

. John O. Otey. 

J. E. Clarke. 

Dr. John P. Goodwyn. 
J. E. Perkinson. 

. Col. J. C. Phillips. 

. Robert S. Hudgins. 

. Hon. Robert Beverley. 
. J. H. Woodward. 

. Dr. D. R. Boston. 

. R. F Vaughan. 

James H. Guthrie. 

Dr. B. L. Winston. 

J. M. Ruffin. 







84 


PROCEEDINGS OF THE 


Henrico, 

CC 

CC 

<• . ^ 
Henry, 

James City, 

King William, . 

CC 

CC 

Lunenburg, 

CC 

CC 

Matthews, . 

CC 

Madison, 

Mecklenburg, 

CC 

CC 

Northampton, 

<< 

Nottoway, 

Powhatan, . 

Prince Edward, . 

CC 

Prince George, . 
Rockbridge, 

CC 

CC 

CC 

Smythe, 

Spottsylvania, 

Surry, 

CC 

Warwick, . 

CC 

CC 

Washington, 

York, 

Virginia state 

H. W. Wood, 

W. E. Grant, 


. J. F. Jackson. 

. Dr. C. R. Cullen. 

. Rev. Dr. J. H. Ray. 

John C. Fowler. 

. J. P. Brown. 

. D. W. Marston. 

. B. C. Garrett. 

. A. T. Mooklar. 

. T. C. Commins. 

. I. T. Bagby. 

. George E. Smith. 

. R. A. Blackwell. 

F. R. Haynes. 

. W. N. Traylor. 

John C. Utz. 

Armistead Burwell. 

. E. Betts. 

. J. Y. Nichols. 

Henry L. Upshur. 

. Dr. Charles Smith. 

. Dr. O. M. Knight. 

. J. H. Hobson. 

Col. J. P. Fitzgerald. 

. T. J. Garden. 

. Robert S. Lockett. 

. Col. J. D. H. Ross. 

. Prof. H. D. 'Campbell. 

. J. O. Shepherd. 

. J. W. Talley. 

. Dr. J. S. Apperson. 

. W. Seymour White. 

. Col. Daniel Stone. 

. Dr. M. Q. Holt. 

. J. H. Young. 

. J. H. Crafford. 

. A. C. Pulliam. 

. Col. R. P. Carson. 

. J. W. Clements. 

agricultural and mechanical society. 

H. L Lorraine, E. S. Rose, 

.J. B. Watkins, W. B. Alwood. 







STATE IMMIGRATION CONVENTION. 


85 


STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 

S. Wellfobd Corbin, President ; Absalom Koiner, 

R. V. Gaines, r. m Mall0EY) 

Col. A. S. Buford, . Col. Thos Whitehead. 

Young men’s business League, of roaNoke. 

H. W. Anderson. 

business men’s association, of Norfolk. 

James W. McCarrick, Chairman ; 

D. McCormick, Jos. T. Duke, O. E Edwards, 

A. H. Lindsay, T. H. Synon, Walter Sharp, 

P. L. Poindexter, N. P. Gatling, Fred. S. Taylor, 

Walter H. H. Trice. 

Honorary Members : Col. E. M. Henry and C. Pickett. 

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, OF RICHMOND. 

R. B. Chaffin, Joseph Wallerstein, 

James H. Barton, A. S Buford. 

chamber of commerce, of Norfolk. 

A. Jeffers and K. C. Murray. 

real estate exchange, of Norfolk. 

W. B. Baldwin and Walter Sharp. 

BOARD OF TRADE, OF PORTSMOUTH. 

Paul C. Trugien. 

BOARD OF TRADE, OF BUENA VISTA- 

R. W. WlNBURNE. 


cermaN-AMEricaN association, of Virginia. 

Rev. Paul L. Menzel, D. D., A. Von Rosenegk, Chas. T. Loehr, 
Joseph Wallerstein, W. H. Zimmermann. 

transportation Lines. 

Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad, 

C. A. Taylor, Traffic Manager. 

South Atlantic and Ohio Railroad, 

C. L. Bunting, General Freight and Passenger Agent. 


OFFICERS OF THE 

IMMIGRATION ASSOCIATION OF VIRGINIA. 

HEADQUARTERS: RICHMOND, VA. 


President, 

JOSEPH AVALLERSTEIN, 
Richmond, Ya. 

Vice-President, 

J. P. FITZGERALD, 
Farmville, Ya. 

Secretary and Treasurer pro tern., 
R. A. DUNLOP, 
Richmond, Ya. 


EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

First District. —B. B. Brockenborough, Tappahannock, Va. 
Second District. —A. Jeffers, Norfolk, Va. 

Third District. —T. C. Commins, Rumford, Ya. 

Fourth District. — Dr. R. S. Powell, Woodview, Ya. 

Fifth District. —Wm. D. Saunders, Hunter’s Hall, Ya. 

Sixth District. — James H. Guthrie, Houston, Ya. 

Seventh District. — John C. Utz, Madison Courthouse, Va. 
Figlith District. — O. E. Hine, Vienna, Ya. 

Ninth District. —Col. R. P. Carson, Abingdon, Ya. 

!Tenth District. —A. T. Barclay, Buena Yista, Va. 

James H. Barton, Richmond, Ya. 

E. A. Catlin, Richmond, Ya. 

R. B. Chaffin, Richmond, Ya. 

J. F. Jackson, Richmond, Ya. 

W. H. Zimmermann, Richmond, Ya. 





INDEX. 


Page. 

Remarks of II. \\ . 5\ ood. Esq., President of the Virginia Agricultural and Me¬ 


chanical Society, in calling the Convention to order,. 3 

Address of Welcome by his Excellency Charles T. O’Ferrall, Governor of Vir¬ 
ginia, . 4 

Permanent Organization of the Convention,. 7 

Partial List of Delegates,.*. 8 

Address of Absalom Koiner, Esq., President of the Convention,. 9 

Programme Adopted,. 10 

The Agricultural Resources and Capabilities of the Soil of Virginia. By Prof. 

W. B. Alwood,. 10 

Forestry and its Forest Products. By Dr. John S. Apperson, . . ..19 

Its Mineral Wealth. By Prof. H. D. Campbell,.27 

Its Industrial Advantages. By Prof. L. S. Randolph,.83 

Its Navigable Waters and Resources. By Captain J. B. Baylor, United States 

Coast and Geodetic Survey,.36 

Its Transportation Facilities. By Col. A. S. Buford,.40 

Its Climatic Advantages and Health. By Dr. E. A. Craighill,.44 

Its Educational and Social Advantages. By Capt. C. E. Vawter,.51 

The Class of Immigrants most Desired, and the Section of this Country from 
which it is Feasible to Secure them. By Judge Charles Grattan,.57 


The Class of Immigrants most Desired, and the Sections or Countries Abroad 
from which it is Desirable to Secure them. By Rev. Paul L. Menzel, I). D.. . 60 
The Manner in which Local Organization can be formed to Induce Immigration 
and to Suitably and Successfully Locate Immigrants. By John C. Fowler, . 64 
What Central Organization would be most Feasible and Effective. By W. Sey¬ 
mour White,.65 

What would be the Practical Advantages of Immigration to Virginia. By Col. 

J. P. Fitzgerald,. 67 

The Steps Most Essential to Secure Immigration ; How the State and County Au¬ 
thorities Can Best Co-operate to Promote it, and what, if any, Additional 

Legislation is Desirable. By J. F. Jackson,.71 

Resolutions Reported by Committee on Resolutions,.75 

Statement of Col. Whitehead, Chairman of Committee,.• . . 76 

Committee to Draft Constitution and By-Laws for County Immigration Societies, 79 

Resolution of Inquiry Respecting Transportation Rates on Farm Products and 

Immigrants’ Moveables,.81 

Election of Officers and Executive Committee of the Immigration Association of 

Virginia,.81 

Remarks by Delegates,.79-82 
































MURPHY’S * HOTEL, 

Cor. 8th & Broad Sts, RICHMOND, VA. 


Situated on the highest point in the city, with both a delightful southern and eastern ex¬ 
posure. This house is now the leading Hotel, being centrally located and equipped with all 
modern appointments; it has been materially enlarged by a new addition, which provides 
spacious Sleeping 1 Rooms with Parlors attached. Single and Double Rooms with or without 
Baths. Everything has been perfected to the enchantment of every desire and comfort of all 
who may favor us with their patronage, which is most respectfully solicited. The Hotel is 
provided with the best of service attainable ; it is also provided with a large and elegant Cafe, 
with separate apartments for ladies. The CUISINE unexcelled and maintained at all times 
to the highest standard of excellence. 

JOHN MURPHY, Owner and Proprietor. 

W. J. HEINZ, Chief Clerk. 





































Which are_ 

MAY APPLE, 

NOSEGAY, 

JACK SPRATT, 

Manufactured by 

T. C. Williams Co., 

RICHMOND, VA. 


ELMWOOD NURSERIES, 

fcEJT We offer a splendid assort¬ 
ment of first class stock of the fol¬ 
lowing. adapted to Virginia and the 
neighboring States: Apple, Peach, 
Pear, Plum, Cherry, and Apricot 
Trees; Grape Vines, Currants, 
Gooseberries, Raspberries, Black¬ 
berries, Strawberries, etc , also 'Or¬ 
namental Evergreen and Shade 
Trees. We employ no agents, but 
sell directly to planters; therefore 
you will find it to your interest to 
see our prices before you place your 
order. Catalogue sent on applica¬ 
tion. 

&2T We breed Poland China Hogs 
eligible to registry. Orders for Pigs 

o o j n 

should be booked early in order to secure them. Will also have Bronze Tur¬ 
keys and Plymouth Rock Fowls and Eggs in season. 

Prices to suit the times, which will be given on application to 

J. B. WATKINS & BRO., 

Hallsfooro’, Chesterfield Co., Va. 



































For a Fragrant Smoke 


USE —v 

“ Mayo's M1 ixture," 

Packed in Four Ounce Tins, 

“Blue Ribbon’' Boxes, 


Manufactured by , 

P. H. Mayo & Brother, 

Incorporated, 

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 


STEEL A . 1SJJD WOOD L^INTD ROLLERS. 



ONLY TWO COO WHEELS AND ELEVEN COGS ALWAYS IN MESH 


EASILY THROWN IN AND OUT OF GEAR_ 


wear. 


The power 
is direct. /£■/ 


STEEL SHAFT 


WEAR ON BOXES AND SHAFTS EASILY TAKEN UP 


NO FRAMEWORK HANGING DOWN LOW 
BETWEEN THE WHEELS. 


PITMAN WORKS IN A STRAIGHT LINE. 
WARRANTED NOT TO WEAR OUT. 


Ill to CHARLES E. HUNTER'S, 

or TRUCKS, FARM WAGONS, DAYTON WAGONS, BUGGIES, MILK WAGONS, CARTS, 

GROCERY and DELIVERY WAGONS. 

Tieer All Steel Disk Harrows. Collard Four Section Steel Harrows. Thomas & Brown 
Smoothing Harrows. Genuine Oliver Chill Plows and Extras. Genuine 
Farmers’ Friend Plows and Castings. 


Champion and Whitley Steel Mowers and Binders, Lone Star and Tiger Rakes, Standard and Pore Ma¬ 
nilla Binder Twine. A complete line of Agricultural Implements ot every description. Call and see them. 
Correspondence solicited. Address all orders to Box 444, Richmond, Va. 


JAMES G. HENING. General Manager. 






































In Diversity of Products, 

In Healthfulness, 

In Mildness and Equability of Climate, 

In Nearness to Markets, 

In Schools, Churches, and Other Needs of an Ad¬ 
vanced Civilization, and 
In All That Goes to Make Life Worth Living, 


THE TERRITORY OF THE 

Atlantic 
Coast Line 


IS PRE-EMINENT. 


Here are some of 
the staple crops of 
the different sec¬ 
tions of this area: 


All Vegetables and 
Small Fruits, 
Peaches, Pears, 
Grapes, Figs, 

And Other Fruits. 


Wheat, 

Corn, 

Oats, 

and 

Other Grains. 


Tobacco, 

Cotton, 

Peanuts, 

Hay, 

Rice. 


The policy of the Atlantic Coast Line is to foster all developments along 
its line. It is the Greatest Trucking Road in America, and it provides 
every facility for getting farm, garden and orchard products to the Northern 
markets in best possible condition, in shortest time, and at lowest rates. 

In ?io part of the country is there a greater abundance of game and fish 
than in the eastern counties of North and South Carolina. 

Northern farmers are invited to write for information in detail about 
the territory of the Atlantic Coast Line, which extends from Richmond and 
Norfolk to Columbia and Charleston. 


T. M. EMERSON, Traffic Manager. 

H. W. EMERSON, Asst. Qen. Freight Agent. 


WILMINGTON, N. C. 


VIRGINIA STATE FAIR, 

OCTOBER 8™ TO 12™ 1895, 


UNDER THE AUSPICES 
OF THE__ 


at RICHMOND, VA. 


Virginia Slate Agricultural & Mechanical Society. 


¥ ¥ ¥ 


Very liberal premiums. No charge for entries for com¬ 
petition. 

It is desired to make this the grandest exhibit of Agri¬ 
cultural Products and Live Stock ever shown in Virginia, and 
farmers are specially solicited to send the best of their Pro¬ 
duce and Stock for competition. 

$6,000 OFFERED in purses for races. 

Th ree Running and Three Trotting Events Each Day. 

Bicycle Races, Boys’ Sports, and other Special and Extra¬ 
ordinary Attractions to amuse and entertain visitors. 

Special LOW RAILROAD RATES. One single fare 
for round trip from all points. Also extra favorable rates for 
exhibits. 

For premium list and all information, address 

WM. Q. OWENS, Secretary, 

Room 40, Chamber of Commerce, Richmond, Va. 





Richmond, Fredericksburg 

and 

Potomac Railroad, 

SHORT • LINE 


to 

Richmond, Va., $ the South. 

From 

Washington, Baltimore, 

Philadelphia, New York, 

Boston, and Eastern Cities. 


Direct all rail line between Richmond and Northern 

and Western Cities. 


Desirable Farm Lands for Settlers. 


E. T. D. MYERS, C. A. TAYLOR, 

President. Traffic Manager. 





Whittet & Shepperson, 


General Printers, 


10th & Main Sts., 


Our SPECIALITY 

IS THE BEST GRADE OF 


RICHMOND, Vfl. 


Commercial Work. 


¥ ¥ ¥ 

pine Catalogues, 

Pamphlets, Etc. 





0 019 300 96(j “g 


Formerly. Crump. Seabright 


BENJ. T. CRUMP & CO M 1309 E. Main St. 



Made with Truss Rid, Axles and Whipple Guide. 


Farm Wagons. Buggies, Etc,, Harness, 
Saddlery, Robes, Whips, Etc. Styles, 
Modern, Artistic and Reliable. 

HARNESS, SADDLERY, Etc., 

A leading feature. Made to order. 
Lowest Prices. 

Manufacturers and Dealers. 

BENJ. T. CRLMP & CO., Richmond, Va. 



The Largest Seed House in the South. 

T. W. WOOD & SONS, 

SEED GROWERS g? MERCHANTS, 

1321 E. Main St., & 10 S. Fourteenth St., RICHMOND, VA. 

Garden ana Farm Seeds. Seed Potatoes, Seed Grain, Etc. 

Of Every Variety and Kind Required by the 

FARMER, TRUCKER, GARDENER and FLORIST. 

WOOD'S DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE mailed free. It is a most valuable guide for 
both farm and garden operations, giving descriptions, modes of culture, and hints as to the best 
and most profitable varieties and crops to grow. A new departure this year is “ Monthly Opera¬ 
tions for the Farm and Garden." Under this head is given the crops that can be put in each 
month in the year, information as to their culture, and outline of work suggested to prepare for 
crops for the coming months. Correspondence solicited. 

7. W. WOOD & SONS. Seedsmen. 


RICHMOND, VA. 


























































